Preamble

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PERSONAL EXPLANATION

Mr. Driberg: I beg to ask the leave of the House to make a personal explanation. In the course of a supplementary question yesterday, I made a statement reflecting upon the hon. and gallant Member for Wirral (Captain Graham) in a way which has, I understand, caused him annoyance and distress. I understand also from you, Mr. Speaker, that the words that I used were outside the bounds of what is permissible in this House. Since it is forbidden to introduce contentious matter in a personal explanation, I will only say, Sir, that my reference to the hon. and gallant Member was purely political and not intended to reflect in any way on his personal integrity. I ask your leave, Sir, and the leave of the House, to withdraw the words complained of; and I hope that my withdrawal will be accepted precisely in the spirit in which it is made.

Captain Alan Graham: I gladly accept the explanation of the hon. Member and his withdrawal of the implied slur on the patriotism of Members of this House.

BILL PRESENTED

PUBLIC WORKS LOANS BILL

"to grant money for the purpose of certain local loans out of the Local Loans Fund and for other purposes relating to local loans, and to enable the functions of the secretary of the Public Works Loan Commissioners to be performed, in the event of his inability to act, by an assistant secretary"; presented by Mr. Assheton; to be read a Second time upon the next Sitting Day, and to be printed. [Bill 11.]

Orders of the Day — SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE (AMENDMENT) [MONEY]

Resolution reported:
That for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to amend the law regulating the number of puisne judges of the High Court and the attachment of such judges to the several divisions of that Court, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom, and out of moneys provided by Parliament, of sums equal to the amount of any increase which may be incurred by reason of the said Act of the present Session in the sums payable under the Supreme Court of Judicature (Consolidation) Act, 1925, out of the said Fund and out of moneys provided by Parliament respectively.

Resolution agreed to.

SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE (AMENDMENT) BILL

Considered in Committee.

[Mr. CHARLES WILLIAMS in the Chair]

CLAUSE 1.—(Number and distribution of puisne judges.)

Flight-Lieutenant Challen: I beg to move, in page 1, to leave out lines 10 to 15, and to insert:
Provided that whenever the whole number of the puisne judges of the High Court amounts to twenty-five or upwards, a vacancy occurring among those judges shall not be filled unless and until an address is presented to His Majesty from both Houses of Parliament representing that the state of business in the High Court requires that the vacancy should be filled, but, where such an address has been presented, it shall be lawful for His Majesty from time to time without any further address to fill any vacancy which may arise among the said judges at any time within a period of one year next after the date of the presentation to His Majesty of that address.
The object of the Amendment, in respect of which there is also a consequential Amendment to the Schedule, is to maintain the present position as laid down by Parliament in the Act of 1925. By that Act Parliament has some control and influence over the appointment of additional judges. The number of High Court judges is limited by Act of Parliament; but some considerable time ago, when the question arose of appointing additional judges over that minimum


figure, Parliament laid down that, in the case of the appointment of judges of the King's Bench Division, these additional judges should not be appointed by His Majesty unless and until a report was presented by both Houses representing that the state of business required it. The wording of this Clause is actually the wording of the relevant Sub-section of Section 11 of the Act of 1925, with certain modifications to bring it into line with the principle which is being established by this new Bill. I am not questioning the principle of the new Bill in dealing with High Court judges as a whole instead of judges of each Division; but if the position is to be altered then the same principles should apply to the High Court judges as apply at present to the judges of the King's Bench Division.
Parliament has always been very jealous of its control over the court of King's Bench for obvious reasons. If we are to maintain that principle—and I submit that we should maintain it—then it follows that the principle must apply to the appointment of all additional High Court judges. There are very good reasons why, when the Executive come to the conclusion that they wish to have additional judges, over and above the minimum laid down by Parliament they should come to the House of Commons and state their reasons, and give opportunities to Members of this House to make suggestions and to have the subject ventilated, and give opportunities for Ministers of the Crown to explain what is the state of business in the High Court and why additional judges are required. It may well be that opinions differ on whether these judges should be appointed, and on this particular issue, differences of opinion certainly have manifested themselves. I am not questioning the desirability of appointing some additional judges for the purpose of taking divorce work, but for that purpose, a simple Bill would have been sufficient, instead of altering the existing system by which Parliament actually has the control over the appointment of additional judges.
I do not want to go into history or into a disquisition on the origin of and reasons for Parliament's jealousy in the case of the appointment of His Majesty's judges. But I suggest that, in time of war, when we are all agreed that legislation requires to be directed mainly towards war aims,

we are hardly in a position to give the attention we might like to give to constitutional points, or to decide whether a particular constitutional principle is of sufficient magnitude to be retained, or sufficiently unimportant to be abolished. At such a time we ought to leave these constitutional points alone. At another time, when we can give our minds to the subject more clearly and give greater attention to it, Parliament may well consider whether it really wants to maintain its control over His Majesty's judges, but I maintain that at the present time, with the business that is before the House of Commons, it is not right to bring in a Bill which abolishes that control of Parliament. Surely, at the present time, when we are dealing with the removal of a constitutional safeguard, we should ask our selves, "Is this legislation really necessary?" If the answer is—as I think it obviously is—in the negative, let us retain the present position by which the House of Commons, by a very simple procedure, puts through an Address to the Crown indicating its wish to have additional judges appointed. It is provided, in the event of a vacancy occurring very shortly after the appointment, that the position still remains and a new judge can be appointed. Let us have an opportunity of ventilating the matter and of hearing what the Attorney-General and Law Officers have to say with regard to the necessity of such an appointment, instead of letting the safeguard go and leaving it entirely to the Executive.

Dr. Russell Thomas: In supporting the Amendment which has been so ably moved by my hon. and gallant Friend, I wish to say that I am specially concerned that we should not take advantage of the circumstances of the present times in a way which we might regret very much in future. I think my hon. and gallant Friend has made that point extremely clear, and I hope it has been convincing to the Attorney-General. I do not want to add much to what he said because I spoke at some length on the Second Reading, but I would repeat my regret that Parliament is handing over its remaining powers in this way. I regretted very much the Measure passed a few years ago, which started this process, and I am afraid this Bill is completing the process begun at that time. There is a great danger—


although hon. Members may not realise it to-day—of handing over completely to the Executive Government the choice of judges. We all trust the Government at the present time; we feel they are undertaking a great task, but nevertheless we are developing an authoritarian type of State which might be the pattern of things to come. That may be necessary during the war, but it may well be that when this war is over, authoritarianism will thrive and at such a time it will be extremely important that the judiciary should be completely free from the Executive. A future Lord Chancellor might not have the same sense of liberty and honour as our present Lord Chancellor. He might well act as a tool of the Government, and the Government might put in men who would remind our progeny of the timeservers to whom I referred last week. The Bench might be filled with people anxious for promotion and willing to accept the commands of the Executive. If that were to happen, it would be another way of getting around the Act of Settlement, which endeavoured to establish the independence of the judiciary, by not permitting a Judge to be removed except on an Address of both Houses of Parliament. Parliament thought it had made sure of the independence of the judiciary in that way, but what I have suggested may be found in the future to be a way of undermining the effect of the Act of Settlement itself. Without troubling the House with past history, I am sure hon. Members will be able to bring to mind what happened before that enactment and how James II had taken to himself the dispensing power with the connivance of his judges. Indeed I believe the then Chief Justice of England, Chief Justice Herbert, acted as his minion at the time and held that the laws of England were the King's laws. We all know how this eventually cost him his throne and led to the specific condemnation of the dispensing power in the Bill of Rights. In circumstances such as I have indicated, it would not be a question of the King's laws in times to come, but of laws proposed by a bureaucratic Government. Unfortunately, these are more difficult to deal with. You can deal with a King but not with a bureaucracy because it winds its tentacles around everything. Chief Justice Herbert also contended that the King could dispense with the laws, especially the penal law, whilst the Pre-

rogative and matters of Government could not be taken away or restrained by Statute. This Bill might well be the means of undermining the whole of the power of Parliament. We must bear that in mind, not as regards to-day, or to-morrow, but as in relation to future years when an unscrupulous Government controlled by a sprawling bureaucracy, might well put that evil intention into effect.

Mr. Moelwyn Hughes: I regret I shall be unable to follow the hon. Member for Southampton (Dr. Russell Thomas) in his historical meanderings, linking up this small Amendment with the large mass of our constitutional history, including the Bill of Rights. I have only a feeling of slight regret that his ingenuity did not manage to connect this Amendment with Magna Charta. The Committee might, perhaps, be reminded that this Bill fixes the number of the Judges of the High Court at a minimum of 25 and a maximum of 32 and gives the Lord Chancellor the right, when the number is less than 32, to fill up the vacancies as the state of business demands. This commonsense method of giving power to the one who recommends His Majesty how these vacancies should be filled, has been called unconstitutional and bureaucratic, as if it were something of which Parliament had never seen or heard. In fact, the principle that vacancies should be filled at the discretion of the Lord Chancellor has already been accepted twice by this House. The Judicature Act provides for six Chancery Judges. If a vacancy occurs, and the number falls to five, the Lord Chancellor may or may not fill it, according to the state of business in the Division. When two additional judges were added to the King's Bench Division, provision was made that, for 12 months after a Resolution, it would not be necessary to come to this House, and the Lord Chancellor could fill a vacancy within those twelve months at his own discretion, depending, of course, on the state of business. The principle has been recognised twice and there is no reason—constitutional, bureaucratic, anti-bureaucratic or otherwise—which could compel the Committees to accept this Amendment, and I hope it will be rejected.

Major Petherick: I support the Amendment moved by my hon. and gallant Friend. I do not


know whether there is more legislation in war time than in peace time, but it is extremely difficult for any Member of Parliament to be able to follow all that is produced, and some small, apparently innocent and technical Bill, is apt to slip through, containing an important constitutional point without anyone really noticing it. My hon. and gallant Friend drew my attention to this Sub-section the other day, and I think there is an important constitutional point involved. I was very surprised to hear an eminent lawyer like the hon. and learned Member for Carmarthen (Mr. Moelwyn Hughes) make a disparaging remark about the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton (Dr. Russell Thomas). The hon. and learned Member suggested that it was strange that the hon. Member for Southampton had gone back so far into history as to refer to Magna Charta. That is a disparaging suggestion about Magna Charta itself which, surely, is the foundation of all the liberties of Britain. It seems very curious that such a remark should come from a member of the legal profession. I noticed the other day that all the lawyers in the House—with one or two notable exceptions—were cheering this Bill almost to the echo. The legal profession is perhaps the strongest trade union represented in the House of Commons and in the country—I am not sure that I need except the doctors. Without being unkind one may say that naturally they do not view with great disfavour, anything which increases the number of prizes in their profession. However, I do not think that is the main point.
The hon. and learned Member failed to recognise the essential point in this matter. He said, and it is quite true, that there are precedents under which the Lord Chancellor can fill up vacancies. We know that is the case, but what we are trying to establish is that the Lord Chancellor shall not have the right to add to the total number of judges without coming to Parliament. Now, admittedly, the power to appoint judges may conceivably become dangerous, but there is the constitutional foothold kept by the High Court of Parliament over the judges. Supporting the Executive wanted to pack the Bench by adding to its numbers it could not at present do so. What is the position under the Bill, what are our objections and what is the reason

for our Amendment? We do not object to the increase in the number of judges because the state of business at the present time demands that that should be done. But what we do object to, is the removal of one of the last vestiges of power Parliament has over the numbers of judges.
In the old days, judges were appointed quanzdiu se bene gesserint, and held their office purely and simply at the pleasure of the King. I would like to mention the case of Chief Justice Jeffreys, who was an extremely good lawyer but, unfortunately, suffered from two disadvantages,—gallstones and an exaggerated eye for the main chance. Some of his judgments culminated in the Bloody—if I may use an unparliamentary, but, by now, hallowed expression, Mr. Williams—Assize, and he achieved much unfavourable notoriety by his decisions at that time. The whole of the 17th century contained a series of struggles by Parliament to assert the right independence and integrity of the judges. Indeed, an indication of this was put into the Bill of Rights and into the Act of Settlement. The implication in the Act of Settlement about juries is very strong and it has become a well established fact that our judges are not above the law but apart from the law. Perhaps the most recent emphasis laid upon that was in 1933, when judges' salaries were to be cut down, and they declared that they were not subject to having their salaries reduced, but were independent, although owning allegiance to the Crown.
Anything we do to undermine that position may be highly dangerous, and I think Parliament should adhere to its two remaining powers. One is that it can remove a judge who is guilty of neglect or any enormity, and the other is the power it still preserves to limit the numbers of judges. It is true that they have been limited up to 32 at the moment, but between 25 and 32 there are, after all, seven vacancies. I admit that is not very much, but it is something, and I maintain that we ought to preserve our very small foothold in the general position.

The Attorney-General (Sir Donald Somervell): The speeches to which we have listened might, I think, have had some relevance if this Bill had given the Lord Chancellor an unlimited power as to


the number of judges of the High Court he could appoint. In fact, it does nothing of the kind. It limits the number to 32. Reference has been made to the Bill of Rights and the Act of Settlement, bat, until 1910, there was no provision for coming to Parliament for a Resolution that judges could be appointed. There was never any question of coming to Parliament for a Resolution up to 1910 though the number had been raised in successive stages, having regard to the increased work, since 1688.

Major Petherick: The question did not arise then.

The Attorney-General: Yes it did; the numbers were increased. The point I am making is this: that in 1910 it was decided that more judges were required, and that, instead of putting up the number without qualification, it was thought that circumstances might arise in which you could do without the one or two additions to the establishment. Instead of the number being put up to 17 without qualification it was put up with a provision about a Resolution afterwards, if there was a vacancy after twelve months. There is no constitutional point involved here. We propose this alteration merely on the important practical ground that the provision that you must come to Parliament for a Resolution inevitably tends to a certain delay and, to some extent, means waiting until the evil of arrears has arisen before you make the appointment which is necessary to keep abreast of the work.

Dr. Russell Thomas: The right hon. and learned Gentleman is making that as an excuse. Even when arrears were accumulating, you would be well warned there would be ample time for the House of Commons to appoint judges.

The Attorney-General: That seems to strengthen my point. Under the Resolution system you have to find Parliamentary time and so on and the tendency has been to wait. We do not want that situation to arise; we want the establishment to be kept up unless it is clear that a judge has become unnecessary and the appointment need not be filled. In other words, the position is that Parliament has put up the establishment of judges to 32. If it happens that there is a vacancy and it is unnecessary to fill it, the Lord Chancellor need not fill it. Therefore, I hope

the Committee will reject the Amendment and accept the principle embodied in the Bill, which does not raise any constitutional principle and will, I think, be found to be a better, more satisfactory and a prompter procedure than that which was adopted under the 1910 Act.

Mr. Thorne: Are the two extra judges required because there are so many divorce cases coming up?

The Attorney-General: Yes, Sir.

Mr. Thorne: Then why not try to alter the mentality of the people of this country?

The Attorney-General: I think my hon. Friend, with his experience, would be better able to do that than I could.

Amendment negatived.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedule agreed to.

Bill reported, without Amendment.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the Third time."

Mr. Douglas: Before we take leave of the Bill, I should like to ask the Ministers who will be responsible for operating it, to do so without any hesitation. It has long been a scandal that our law has been worked on the principle that to waste the time of a judge for an hour or two is a dreadful offence, but that it does not matter if you waste the time of a score of litigants, lawyers and Witnesses and keep them hanging about the courts for days at a time.
Reference has been made to constitutional principles. I think it is the first principle of our Constitution that justice should not be denied or delayed. Delay, in many matters, is extremely serious, and cannot possibly be compensated. There is no means in our law, except in a very few cases of monetary claims, in which there is any remedy. That applies, above all things, to the question which has brought this matter to an issue—that of divorce. People do not take divorce proceedings as a rule, unless they have been absolutely driven to do so. It is the last resort, when they have come to the conclusion that there is no remedy and that their homes have been completely and


finally broken up. To deprive people in those circumstances of the remedy to which they are entitled and to cause them in many cases, in undefended suits, to wait for many months and, after they get a decree nisi, to wait for another six months before it becomes absolute, is a shocking state of things. I hope the powers that are given under the Bill will be operated without any hesitation in order to remedy these delays.

Mr. Ivor Thomas: I should not have risen had it not been for the remarks of my hon. Friend, with whom, on this occasion, I feel bound to disagree. To the general principle that justice should not be delayed there are exceptions. I am shocked, not by the delays that occur in the matter of divorce but by the levity with which hundreds of cases are rushed through in a few minutes. In the interest of the parties concerned and in the general interests of society, the courts should not be in a hurry to dissolve the bonds of matrimony. I trust, therefore, that the Bill will not be used for that purpose, but that the judges will do their best to keep marriages together and not dissolve them.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill read the Third time, and passed.

DISABLED PERSONS (EMPLOYMENT) BILL

As amended, considered.

NEW CLAUSE.—(Part-time work and amount of wages.)

Where a disabled person is certified by a medical officer appointed by the Minister as being unfit for full-time work because of his disablement and where such disabled person by working part-time only will be paid part-time wages, the Minister may make arrangements with any other person for the payment to the disabled person of such sum as will be the difference between the part-time wage and the wage which would have been ordinarily payable for full-time work—[Mr. Messer.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. Messer: I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
The Clause does not give me all that I should like, but it has been found difficult to get a form of words which will get somewhere near what I want, without going outside the terms of the Bill.

I realise the possibility of some people being denied the opportunity of employment, because the terms of the employment and their physical condition, will prevent them earning sufficient to enable them to live. There will be many cases of people who cannot be introduced into a factory or workshop for a full day's work right away. There are types of cases in which it is obviously in the interest of the patient that he should do only a few hours' work. There are tuberculosis cases, cases of men who have spent not weeks or months, but years in sanatoria and whatever sort of rehabilitation treatment they may be given, they must be introduced into industry gradually. Unless there is some provision whereby the part-time wages that they earn can be made up approximately to a full wage, they will not be able to take advantage of the provisions of the Bill.
There is a third type, the workmen's compensation case, in which men or women have been certified as fit for light work. They may be able to work for a few hours a day but, if they do, they will run the risk of losing their compensation and will not earn enough to provide a substitute for it. I should like to get the Minister to co-operate in this matter with other Government Departments, because the principle has already been conceded and it is recognised that a man can earn some money each day without being disqualified from unemployment insurance. Under the recent tuberculosis scheme of the Ministry of Health, which had for its object attracting potential patients into treatment, the Ministry proposed to give to a married man 39s. a week, with the provision that if he undertook part-time work a third of that 39s. would not be paid. That makes it possible for the type of tuberculosis patient that comes within the Government scheme to get something in addition to his wages. The tuberculosis case which does not come within the scheme, the asthmatic case or the gastric ulcer case—people who can only do light work—will not be so treated.
I want to see the Bill a success. In order that it should be a success, I want to attract the largest number of people who can take advantage of it. I am of opinion that it would be in the interest, not merely of those concerned but of the community, to let people work rather


than live on income derived without work. It is in the interests of the self-respect of the man himself that he should be permitted to render some service for what he is getting. We are hoping to bring blind people within the rehabilitation scheme. We realise that, no matter what training some blind people may have, it is impossible for them to earn enough to keep themselves. Therefore, under schemes prepared by county councils and county borough councils, there is a fund for augmentation of income by which a blind person can get a grant, to make up what he earns to an amount which will keep him. If he is unemployable, he can draw a grant which is sufficient to keep him. I do not want to deter anybody from working. I would prefer that, instead of choosing the unemployable grant, a person should choose to work for a period, provided that the amount that he earns is augmented so that it will be enough to keep him.

Mr. Tinker: I beg to second the Motion.
On broad lines, I agree with my hon. Friend that a man who is disabled through infirmity or accident, if he can get part-time work, should not have at the back of his mind the idea that he will get no other help. There should be some fund, or some means by which an addition can be made to his part-time earnings. I would utter a word of warning with regard to what my hon. Friend said about workmen's compensation. A man draws workmen's compensation because he is injured at his employment, and I hope that the employer will be regarded as fully liable to meet his needs. Apart from such cases, there are thousands of men who could do some light work and might be held back from doing it because the earnings would not be very much. If something could be added to their earnings it would encourage them to take such work.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mr. Tomlinson): I am sure that every Member is in sympathy with the object of this proposed new Clause, and we agree on the desirability of what my hon. Friend is seeking. I am in that position, but I do not think that the Clause can find a place in this Bill. The very illustrations which

my hon. Friend used, show how impossible it would be to deal with a particular type of disabled persons who come on to the register or who are regarded as disabled when it comes to a question of their employment. Everybody realises the necessity for full maintenance, but the question whether maintenance can be based on an arrangement which is made when an individual is taken into work for a period is not a matter for a Bill of this kind. There is nothing in the Bill which prevents the Minister—it is done now in certain circumstances—coming to an arrangement, whereby an individual receives an addition to his earnings because he is disabled. Somebody during the Committee stage referred to the arrangement that was made for varying amounts of wages under the Trade Boards Act because of disability. There are people working in the City to-day under those conditions, and I have seen them within the last few weeks. The fact that this is not a Measure either of social insurance or of general social legislation prevents us putting in a Clause of this kind.
Reference has been made to payments made by the Ministry of Health in tuberculosis cases and the possibility of such payments being regarded as part payments towards maintenance. That is a question which will have to be looked into in the light of experience. Although we are in full sympathy with my hon. Friend's object, and I hope that it will be possible to achieve it, I do not think it can be done by putting the new Clause into this Bill. My hon. Friend who seconded the Motion, referred to workmen's compensation. The object of the Bill is so to rehabilitate and resettle a man who is injured at work that he will not need to take into consideration what he is receiving in compensation, but will be able to receive full Wages in addition to the compensation. Not only would the new Clause cut across the Bill, but it would be impossible, in this Measure, to achieve the object it sets out to achieve. I hope that my hon. Friend will withdraw his new Clause, realising that the object we have in mind is to do what he desires.

Mr. Messer: If the Parliamentary Secretary says that he is in sympathy with my object, I can ask for nothing more, because I believe that if he and the Minister are sympathetic, they will find a way to


meet what I think is a legitimate point. On that understanding, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion and Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

CLAUSE 9.—(Obligations as to employment of quota of registered persons in substantial staffs.)

Mr. Tomlinson: I beg to move, in page 6, line 29, to leave out "other," and to insert "lower."
This Amendment is designed to carry out the Minister's promise made in Committee to find a way to ensure that, if any alteration were made in the number of employees that would bring an employer within the terms of Clause 9, such alteration would be downwards and not upwards. This Amendment secures that object and makes it clear.

Amendment agreed to.

The Attorney-General (Sir Donald Somervell): I beg to move, in page 7, line 38, to leave out "and"
This and the next Amendment meet a point which was made by the hon. and gallant Member for Daventry (Major Manningham-Buller) on the Committee stage. He was afraid that under the Bill as drafted, proceedings might start with a certificate being waved in the face of the court and a person saying, "Here we have a fellow who has been before the committee and they think he ought to come here." That might be rather unfair to a dependent, so we have introduced words to say that the fact that he has been before a committee need not be referred to by anybody. If he chooses to raise the question himself, and challenge the prosecution, then proof can be given. It is not a point of importance. The Amendment completely meets the suggestion which was made and which, I thought, had something in it.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendment made:

In line 38, after "prosecution," insert:
it shall not be necessary to prove compliance with the preceding provisions of this Subsection unless the defendant so requires, and if he so requires.

CLAUSE 13.—(Provisions for interpretation, etc., of preceding sections.)

The Attorney-General: I beg to move, in page 10, line 41, to leave out "thereto," and to insert:
to that of master and apprentice.
In the Committee stage, I was asked a question about the scope of the words, which, as the Bill was originally drafted, read like this:
the legal character of which is that of master and servant, or is that of master and apprentice or a relationship similar thereto.
I told the Committee that they meant a relationship similar to that of master and apprentice, but apparently the words, as drafted, might apply equally to a relationship similar to master and servant. If one looked at the words carefully, and saw where the commas were, it seems clear that the words applied only to master and apprentice, but it is very desirable that it should be so read, and the Amendment achieves that purpose.

Amendment agreed to.

CLAUSE 21.—(Application as respects place of employment, and nationality.)

Mr. Turton: I beg to move, in page 17, line 34, after "subjects," to insert:
who have served whole-time in the Armed Forces of the Crown, in the Merchant Navy, or the Mercantile Marine, or in any of the capacities mentioned in the First Schedule to this Act.
Hon. Members will find that the wording of the Amendment is the same as that which the Minister has placed in Clause 16. The Sub-section to which I want to draw the attention of the House, is that which reads:
This Act shall, subject as may be prescribed, apply to persons who are not British subjects in the same manner as it applies to persons who are British subjects.
I appreciate that the Amendment may prove to be too wide and may go beyond my intention, which is to exclude from the benefits of the Bill any non-British subject who has not served in the Armed Forces of the Crown. I fear that if other alterations were not made in another place and the Government accepted the Amendment, it might appear that an alien employer would be excluded from the obligations imposed by the Bill. That would have to be


rectified, if the Government should accept the Amendment, but I make no excuse for presenting this Amendment to the House in this form as the difficulty is due to the bad drafting of the Bill.
In the old days, we used to have definitions at the end of a Bill of who was covered by the Bill and who was not In this Bill, a mass of definitions, which are becoming more and more contradictory as we go on, runs through it, from the first Clause. Finally, we have this old relic of the Bill, Clause 21, which says that the Bill shall apply to everybody. If hon. Members will follow my argument they will see how the position stands. In Clause 1 there is a definition of disabled persons; it covers all disabled persons, either in the country now or who may come after the war at any time. There is nothing in Clause 1 to except the members of the German Forces who are now in Italy from receiving advantages under the Bill. The Minister appreciated the wide nature of the definition in Clause 1, and in Clause 7 introduced an Amendment which would give him power to exclude persons who are not ordinarily resident in Britain, and to except those not ordinarily resident but who had fought in the war. That exclusion will not cover the aliens who have been resident in Britain and who have not served in the Forces. In my view, it is not germane to this Amendment but it is a very great mistake in the drafting of the Clause. In Clause 16 there is a further definition, in that the Minister can give preference to all persons, whether alien or otherwise who have served whole time in the Armed Forces of the Crown. Then we come to Clause 21, and I have pointed out its implications. Unless we amend it, we shall give the benefits of this great Bill to aliens equally with British subjects.
I suggest to the Government that there is need for a tie-up of this question of definitions and of the advantages we intend to confer by the Bill upon non-British subjects. I ask them to tie it up to-day, but if they cannot do that, I invite them to tie it up in another place. I am sure that all of us who support the Bill are anxious to see that the debt owed to men of all nationalities who have served in the British Allied Forces and have thereby become disabled, should be repaid by the provisions of the Bill, but those people should not be penalised by

bringing into the scope of the Bill people who have not helped this country by entry into the Armed Forces of the Crown during the war. The House should remember what it is apt to forget, that the more people we bring into the Bill the greater hardship will be imposed on those to whom the debt is owed; greater hardship on men who have fought for this country and have had the good fortune not to be disabled, who will come back at the end of the war and are going to ask us for employment.
I ask the Government to consider the Amendment with care and to think over how the Bill is drafted and whether it can be reshaped. If we can have a clear definition of those to whom the advantages are intended to be given by Parliament, the Bill will be greatly improved. I do not think it is enough for the Minister—I say this with all respect to the Minister, for whom I have a great admiration—to say: "It's all right, I'm going to bring in regulations to make this quite clear." This type of advantage that has been conferred by Parliament must be conferred by Act of Parliament and not merely by Regulations drawn by a kindly Minister. None of us can tell how long any particular Minister will hold office, and it is the duty of Parliament to define in the Bill those whom it is intended to benefit, and, equally, exclude those to whom benefit should not be given.

Commander Galbraith: I beg to second the Amendment. I think my hon. Friend who has moved the Amendment has made its intention perfectly clear to the House. We would like to be assured on the point he raised.

Mr. Tomlinson: I shall ask the House not to accept this Amendment, for reasons which I think the hon. Member himself made quite clear in moving it. I am not going to apologise in advance but I say in advance that I shall probably use the phrase "the Minister has power to prescribe." I think that is all the power that is required in order to achieve the purpose of the Amendment. I am quite certain that the House would not wish, nor do I think the mover of the Amendment would wish, to exclude from benefit a person, for instance an alien, who may have been resident in this country for many years and who has been injured as a result of enemy


action. Obviously, it is not that type of person whom the hon. Member is seeking to exclude. As a matter of fact, unless it is an individual whom the Government would exclude on other grounds I cannot see whom he is trying to keep out, for the Minister has the power, as was suggested over and over again in the Committee stage, to prescribe the conditions under which people can be excluded from taking advantage of this Bill. As a matter of fact one of the reasons indicated for having these powers was that we might do the very thing that my hon. Friend is suggesting in this Amendment. I would point out to him that to accept this Amendment in this Bill, which I think we are all agreed is to be in post-war years part of our social services, is to make a distinction between this and other of our social legislation. Nowhere do we seek to exclude in this way a person whom we describe as an alien.

Mr. Turton: The National Service Act, 1939, definitely does.

Mr. Tomlinson: I said social legislation. That National Service Act was a very necessary piece of legislation, but I do not think it could be described as one of our social advantages or part of our social legislation. We insist on these people paying national health insurance and coming into our unemployment insurance scheme. In that sense I think that where there is a particular reason for it, the case can be met under the powers which the Minister has, and that we should leave the Bill as it stands, making the provision that is necessary.

Mr. Tinker: After listening to the Minister I think there are good grounds for opposing this Amendment. I take it that we want to try to keep every citizen of this country useful. The time might come when in this country we might like to make provision, say, for cripples, and if this Amendment operated we would have to say to the people affected by the Amendment, "We cannot give you any benefits because you did not fight." What we are trying to do by this Bill is to make every citizen useful to the community; if he is a cripple, for instance, to try to put him on the right way to earning his own living. Preference has been given in this Bill to the Armed Forces. That is what I understand.

When that has been done and we can rehabilitate everybody we shall surely never say to these other people that they cannot have the benefit. I think on reflection that the mover of the Amendment will see that it would not be wise to press it.

Earl Winterton: I should like to support what the hon. Member for Leigh (Mr. Tinker) and the Minister have said. No doubt I am to some extent biased, because of my special position as Chairman of the Inter-Governmental Committee for Refugees. I would point out to the mover of the Amendment that, historically speaking, he is on very weak ground. From time to time for the last 400 years at least we have absorbed into the social life of the country a great number of refugees—the Spitalfields weavers, the Huguenots, and hundreds of others. People who come here to-day and are given permission to remain have to pass through a very fine meshed net. There has been some criticism of the Government Departments concerned—the Foreign Office, under which I serve in the official capacity to which I have referred, and the Home Office—because of the narrowness of this mesh. I hope that the House will reject the Amendment.

Mr. Turton: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the Third time."

Sir Austin Hudson: Before this. Bill leaves the House I wish to get an undertaking from the Minister as to how he intends to carry it out. May I first say that I welcome the Bill, as I think it is a worthy contribution to our post-war plans. Owing to the fact that for two days it has been under examination in Committee it may perhaps be an even better Bill than when it came in. I am perfectly certain that it will receive its Third Reading unanimously and with the best wishes of everybody here. What I want is an undertaking from the Minister with regard to a small but unfortunate section of the community, those suffering or who have suffered from tuberculosis. I believe they are fully covered under Clause 15. For that reason I did not think it necessary to raise the matter


earlier in the Debates on the Bill or to move Amendments. But Ministers come and Ministers go, and it would be an advantage, I think, if we could have an undertaking on the Floor of the House, recorded in the OFFICIAL REPORT, that it is the intention of the Minister to try to help those people. Voluntary organisations, of which there are several in this country, are doing a great deal to help these people, both in the rehabilitation centres and in other ways, but unfortunately they cannot of their own account do enough. These people sometimes are not mixed with others, and they will want the sort of scheme that is envisaged in Clause 15 if the matter is to be dealt with properly. I therefore hope that the Minister will feel himself able to say just a word to show that he intends to use the machinery of this Bill to help in what I think everyone in this House will agree is a very grave problem.

Mr. Ellis Smith: Our party have facilitated the passage of this Bill, and on their behalf I want to congratulate the Joint Parliamentary Secretary in particular for the competent and tolerant attitude he has adopted in piloting this Bill through the House. I am particularly pleased about that for many reasons. First, I know the area from which he has sprung, and it gives a great deal of satisfaction to the people of that area to see that one of themselves has been able so to develop himself that he has been able to pilot a Bill of this description through the House. In addition to that I believe there are hundreds of ordinary men and women who, if given the opportunity to serve in a public representative capacity, would be able to preserve that dynamic which British democracy has developed during the war. I believe that the Parliamentary Secretary and others associated with him are a fine example of how British democracy will develop when the new Education Bill begins to take effect. The Bill before us is based upon a large amount of hard work done by a fine body of public-spirited people serving on the Tomlinson Committee.
The whole House is aware of how people suffered after the last war, and I believe that hon. Members, irrespective of our political differences in normal times, will join together in the determination that our men and women disabled during

this war shall not go through what they experienced after the last war. A very fine spirit has found expression in the House during the passage of this Bill, found expression also on the Government Bench in particular, and I make the plea that that same spirit should find expression in the administration of the Bill. I had an experience a few months ago which made me wonder whether many of us are worthy of some of the very fine young men whom I saw. I went through a rehabilitation centre run by the Royal Air Force. I wish all hon. Members could go through one of those centres, because I am convinced that no matter from what walk of life they came they would feel touched by the sufferings of the men disabled as a result of fighting the battle to maintain freedom for every one of us. I hope that the very high standards of the Royal Air Force rehabilitation centres will be maintained in the centres run by the Ministry of Labour.
I am sure we are all pleased that there are to be training courses and rehabilitation courses. Provided the Government follow up this Bill with a satisfactory system of social insurance and maintenance, and provided the Ministry of Pensions administers its responsibilities in the spirit which has been exhibited during the passage of this Bill through the House, I think the time will have arrived when the Government should consider prohibiting groups of men displaying their disabilities in the streets. Between the wars I have often seen half-a-dozen men limping along in the way with which we are all familiar, and it has always sent a cold shudder down my back, but I realise that I could not say very much about it because the way in which such men were treated was disgraceful; but now that public opinion is moving in the direction which it has taken, and that this House seems to be determined that we shall not have a repetition of what happened after the last war, if the Government follow this Bill with a satisfactory system of social maintenance for disabled persons I have no hesitation in saying that steps should be taken to prevent men from displaying their disabilities. On behalf of our party I welcome this Bill and hope that it will be administered on the lines I have indicated.

Dr. Russell Thomas: If I appear to be taking an inordinate


part in the proceedings of the House today——

Hon. Members: Order.

Earl Winterton: Order, order. The hon. Member was stepping over the red line.

Dr. Thomas: I knew that the Noble Lord would not intervene except upon one of those meticulous points of detail which he has observed for so long for so many years. I regret that I have made a mistake. I feel that I am taking an inordinate part in the proceedings of the House to-day, but, after all, I am not responsible for arranging the Business to-day so that it is not my fault if matters in which I am interested all arise together and, after all, I did come to this House in order to express my point of view. I regret that I shall strike a note out of harmony with one of the underlying principles of the Bill. I will do this as gently as possible and with a certain amount of restraint, but, nevertheless, I will not be deterred by any threats of future retribution which may be made to me by the right hon. Gentleman or by any fear of the heavy-weight methods which the Minister has used in previous days. I can assure him that I do not intend to hurt the obvious delicacy of his feelings in any way with the form of words I shall use, and I shall confine myself to matters of high principle only.
I want to make it clear that I welcome the rehabilitation part of the Bill. I think it is of great advantage. I also welcome the part dealing with disabled ex-Servicemen. That is most important. If a disabled ex-Serviceman got a job in front of me I should be prepared to give way. I want that to be made clear, so that no one can in future be in any doubt on that point; but I do note that the Bill does insist that an employer of labour shall employ a certain number of disabled men. That is one of the main principles of the Bill, and the word "disabled" is defined very broadly in Clause 1. "Disabled" does not only mean disabled ex-Servicemen or a civilian injured in an air raid. It is a very wide definition indeed, and includes people who are supposed to have been rehabilitated after tuberculosis and many other diseases, cripples, and the congenitally defective both in mind and body.. The scope is

very wide, and from that I can only deduce that the promoters of the Bill envisage post-war unemployment. I must say it because it is my duty as a Member of Parliament to do so, and I have remarked that no other Member has previously said it in regard to the Bill. That is quite clear. If there were no unemployment then every disabled person who has been rehabilitated—and I am using the word "disabled" as defined in the Bill—would automatically get a job and there would be no necessity for this Bill.
But I am clear that the Bill envisages nothing of the kind. The Bill, therefore, must envisage unemployment. That means that a certain number of men who are not in first class condition, are physically and mentally behind their fellows, will be employed in industry, and that logically and arithmetically a certain number of picked men, men who are in the heyday of their manhood, and upon whom their families depend, will be put out of work. That is what it means if we are to employ disabled men as suggested in the Bill. Naturally it means that. It cannot mean anything else. Let me give an example. Supposing there are 1000 unemployed men after the war and there are 800 jobs. That means that 200 people will be unemployed. But supposing that 25, 30, 40 or 50 men disabled in the broadest sense—not the war disabled men only—were employed, whether employers would wish to employ them or not, that would mean that the number of fit men who would be unemployed would be increased by 25, 30, 40 or 50, as the case may be. I am the first to sympathise with the tragedies of life, and we ought to do everything we can for such men, such as pensions, rehabilitation and so on, but I would ask the House to remember the devastating effect of unemployment upon the fit men who are pushed to the wall under this Bill and who, I repeat, must inevitably be pushed to the wall. There is nothing so demoralising or devastating as continuous unemployment. Nothing so much reduces a man in health, and in morale, and mental and physical well-being. Unhappiness, despair and ultimate ill-health are his lot. But, then, I suppose he will have the advantages of this Bill.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Major Milner): The hon. Member is not entitled to make


a dissertation upon unemployment generally. He should confine himself to what is in the Bill.

Dr. Thomas: If I may say so with deep respect, I am confining myself to what the Bill implies. I am endeavouring to point out the underlying principle of the Bill, and I am giving this example in order to make my case. I am not discussing unemployment, and I am sorry if I have expressed myself rather forcibly in defending my position. I would emphasise that the glory of a nation is its fit men. We must remember that. Let us not worship at the shrine of disease but at that of good health. Of the Parliamentary Secretary's intentions with regard to this Bill I have no doubt. I think they are of the highest order, being based upon earnestness and sincerity. I have no doubt of that at all, but I must say that I could not fail to discern an absence of direction, from a deep philosophy of life, which so seldom appears to dominate the age in which we live. We constantly tell ourselves that we are treading the path of progress. We should, therefore, rebuild not on the flimsy foundations of sentimentality but upon the solid rock of realism.

Dr. Haden Guest: I should not have risen but for the profound and deep-reaching philosophical reflections of my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton (Dr. Russell Thomas) which I shall, if I may, correct by a little plainer and humbler type of thinking about this matter. It seems to me that because the Bill provides for the employment of a proportion of disabled persons it does not necessarily follow—I speak subject to the correction of the philosopher—that there is to be unemployment after the war. I further say that I think to all who have studied the labour situation at all and know the conditions under which disabled persons have struggled on through life for many years past this Bill is one of the most desirable physiological reforms. I use the word "physiological." I do not think it is sentiment at all to employ disabled persons in the way in which they can be employed and make them fit and usable citizens in the community instead of leaving them as a neglected remnant. I venture to think that the House, which unfortunately was not able to follow all the hon. Member's

philosophy, because some of it was not quite audible, will be best advised to follow the words of the Parliamentary Secretary and of the Minister of Labour on these matters. It is, after all, one of the fundamental creeds of our nation that we should provide for all members of the community.
It is not sentimental to provide for those disabled in industry, any more than for those disabled in the field or disabled by reason of the social conditions under which they happen to be born, if we as a society are responsible for those social conditions. It is a duty we owe to these people. In the United States, where they are not particularly sentimental about the employment of labour, they have managed to employ large numbers of very severely handicapped persons and found it an eminently good thing to do. During the war we also have found it possible to do that. The employment of disabled persons is one of the bricks in the foundations of social security which are being laid by the Government. I pay the Government that tribute. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour has taken a big part in this, and I do not think we ought to be diverted from this great work of building social security by even the elevated philosophy of the hon. Member who has just spoken.

Mr. Lewis: I do not think that in the course of the past 15 years I have ever supported a Bill in this House more whole-heartedly than I support this one. It seems to me that it removes a great blot from our industrial system. In passing this Bill the House lays it down as its considered judgment that, whatever may have been the case in the past, it is not enough in the future for the community to see that if a man be injured he does not starve, but that it is also the duty of the community to see that such a man is assisted in every possible way to live as full a life as possible. That seems to me a great advance, and a thing very well worth accomplishing. Personally, I am very glad that the Minister of Labour resisted the temptation to confine the application of this Bill to ex-Servicemen. It is no doubt quite true that the Bill arises out of the war. If it were not for the war, I do not suppose we should be discussing this Bill. But I see no reason why we should not take advantage of the rousing of the public conscience towards


the case of disabled ex-Servicemen to apply the principle on broader lines, as is done in this Bill. It will mean that in years to come, when the problem of the disabled ex-Serviceman is no longer with us, the Bill will still be playing an essential part in the life of the country.
There is one matter in which think the Bill might have been altered. An Amendment was moved in Committee by the hon. and gallant Member for Lonsdale (Sir I. Fraser) which sought to lay down categorically in the Bill a definite obligation on Government Departments to apply its provisions. Those hon. Members who heard the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney-General on that occasion will remember that he gave us very convincing reasons why that should not be done. At the same time he gave us a very definite statement on behalf of the Government, a very definite undertaking, that they would see that this Bill was applied by all Government Departments so far as their staffs were concerned. It remains for this House and for those Houses of Parliament who will follow us in the future to see that that is done. Nobody else can do it. That obligation could not, for reasons which the Attorney-General mentioned, be placed categorically in the Bill, and if the Bill is to be carried out in the spirit and letter by Government Departments, many of whom are very large employers of labour, much will depend on the vigilance of this House in seeing that it is done. On that occasion I pointed out that there are even to-day in the height of war some Government Departments which do not show the active sympathy with disabled ex-Service men we wish for, and I am sure it will be necessary for the House to exercise vigilance over the Government so that the Bill is worked as we would wish it to be worked. One advantage of the Bill, I think, may be to reduce in future what is known as the hard core of unemployment. We have had very startling figures placed before us in the past as to the number of people who cannot be absorbed into full employment. That number includes many people suffering from some disability. I hope that as a result of the Bill that number will be reduced to so large an extent as to have a very considerable effect on that hard core of unemployment.
In conclusion I would like to congratulate the Minister of Labour on having found time, amid the multifarious duties of his great Department, to initiate this Measure, and I would like also to associate myself with what was said by the hon. Member for Stoke (Mr. E. Smith) about the part played by the Parliamentary Secretary, who has piloted this Bill through the House. I am not very closely familiar with his career, but I venture to say that, whatever successes he may have achieved in the past, he will probably not regard it as the least of his successes that his name will always be associated with this Bill.

Mr. Tinker: The hon. Member who has just spoken does not as a rule lean to our point of view, and so I am all the more pleased that he gives approval to this Bill. He spoke about the part played by the Parliamentary Secretary in this matter. I had the honour and pleasure of introducing the hon. Member when he first came to this House. Whatever else I may have done, that at least stands to my credit, and he has been a credit to himself and to the class he represents. I welcome this Bill because it will give hope to a class of the community which needs sympathy from the great mass of the people. Last year I went to the employment exchange in my constituency to find out what was happening to the unemployed. I found a big body of men who were all anxious to do work but who had been crippled or were ill through some cause or another. Nobody would employ them privately. I had a word with the manager of the exchange, and he told me he had no power to force employers to employ them; that he could only send them for interview. I had a word with the men themselves, and it was a pitiful experience. Every one of them was anxious to do something, although they could not do a full day's work. Because of injury, the loss of a leg or a hand, or because of something else that was wrong with them, nobody would employ them. This Bill is intended to try to improve that position. It is going to build men up and give them hope, give them the feeling that they are of some value to the community. Then there will be an attempt to find them work.
The hon. Member for Southampton (Dr. R. Thomas) said putting these men to work would have the result or putting


able-bodied men out of work. If the State finds work for these men it cannot allow able-bodied men to be out of work. I can see in this Bill a trend towards finding work for everybody. That must inevitably follow. In the first place, this Bill gives new hope and health to those who have hitherto had none, and secondly, as I see it, it will lead to full work for all. If private employers are not able to meet their responsibilities, then the State will have to take over to see that there is full employment for everybody. If the private employer cannot provide it, then the State must. I welcome this Bill and wish it every success.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir Ian Fraser: May I, on behalf of disabled persons, whether they be disabled in the Armed Forces or in industry, or whether their disabilities came to them early in life, offer their thanks to the House of Commons and to the public opinion which supports it for a Measure which must be looked upon as a milestone in their lives? There can be no doubt whatever that the organisation of employment for disabled persons which is provided by this Measure must make a contribution towards the happiness of scores of thousands of disabled people, perhaps the greatest contribution that has ever been made. Accordingly, I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Labour upon having the political courage and the humanity to bring this Measure before the House, and I congratulate his Parliamentary Secretary for having so courteously and capably carried the Bill through its various stages.
One other observation occurs to me to be worth making on the Third Reading. Much discussion is taking place among people and in the Press about the merits or otherwise of a National Government and of this House acting in the capacity of a kind of Council of State, where party arguments are diminished—I think that is a fair word, I do not say absent—and where the merits of proposals are discussed. Let me remind the House that no party in the last 25 years has found it possible to pass such a Measure. A Measure of this nature has been recommended to the House and to public opinion by the British Legion for over 20 years. It has been in the mind of the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of

Labour and others belonging to the trades unions for perhaps a like period. But it has not been found possible hitherto for Conservative, Labour or mixed Governments to bring such a Measure to the Statute Book. Why has it been found possible now? Partly on account of the war and the poignancy of the cases that are so much in our minds, coming from the battlefields, but partly also because this is a National Government, where people are willing to subordinate their interests—their vested interests, if you like—and look at the thing without prejudice or partial affection. Hitherto the trade unionists have been unwilling to give full rights to disabled persons. The individual trade unionist is, like every other individual, kindly, understanding and helpful, but the trade unionist, in his organisation, has been unwilling to help. The employer, in his individual capacity, has been kindly and decent, and has done his best.

Mr. Ellis Smith: I do not like to interrupt the hon. and gallant Member in particular, but perhaps he will make allowances for my doing so. The individual trade unionist may have his own views, but the trade unions in general have been very generous to the men disabled in the last war. I myself have had experience of the training, with trade union co-operation, of men disabled in the last war.

Sir I. Fraser: I would be very hurt if the hon. Member, for any reason, did not interrupt me. I hope he will do so. I put it in the reverse way from what he did: the individual trade unionist is a very kindly individual, just like any other individual, but collectively he sticks to his rules, objecting to the alteration of any precedent which has been established. He is the most conservative man in the world. The employer, in the same way, is kindly and understanding, and many employers have gone out of their way to help disabled persons, but frequently their spokesmen in this House have thought that they would not like to do anything even of this kind. A National Government has done it, and I think that that fact is worthy of record. I do not say that a National Government is always right, but there are times when it is advantageous. It is worth remarking that that is one of the things that


can be best done by National, not party Government.
As for the argument of the hon. Member for Southampton (Dr. R. Thomas), its logical end would be that we should follow the Spartans, or perhaps even the Germans, and, in a desperate effort to secure the ultimate efficiency in the material sphere, let all of those who are not quite 100 per cent. go by the board, put them out in the cold to perish, or, better still, get rid of them by some painless method. But that is not the civilised way, nor is it in line with the Christian ethic, which seeks to help those who need help; and I cannot help thinking that it will be a very fine thing for mankind if, in spite of the handicaps which Great Britain places upon herself by a civilised way of life, she yet wins the war against a nation which does not adopt that standard of humanity. Let the House remind itself that the handicap under which disabled persons suffer is rather that of adjustment and finding the right niche: it is not so much a question of their inefficiency in the jobs once they are put into them. It would not be true to say that you are handicapping industry or the nation's production to a great extent by taking thought and pains to see that people handicapped in some way or another are specially trained, specially adapted, and specially placed. This Bill seems to me one which a civilised people should be proud to have passed in their Parliament, and one which will not in itself detract from their efficiency. Indeed, for a long period it may well be thought that, by bringing all the resources of the nation into full play, it will contribute to our efficiency.

Mr. Isaacs: I should like to refer to two observations made by the hon. and gallant Member for Lansdale (Sir I. Fraser). The first was his reference to the fact that this Bill has been procured as a result of Coalition Government. I agree entirely. We should not have had the opportunity of getting the Bill at this time if there had not been the measure of agreement that we have now. We should have found that the old idea that the duty of an Opposition is to oppose would have risen above the desire for a Bill of this sort. The second observation was in reference to trade unions. When the King's Roll was introduced after the last war the great trade unions,

through their Congress and its organisation, agreed to set aside their rules and accept as many of these men as they could, and they did accept a number. The trouble is, the hon. and gallant Gentleman said, that the trade union movement, through its organisation, is conservative. It is the fact that trade unionists want to retain the things that they have fought for. But the trade union movement has another peculiarity. It does not advertise; it does not shout from the housetops the things it has done, as certain other organisations do. I am chairman of the Workmen's Compensation Committee of the Trades Union Congress, working with the Minister of Labour, and I know what the trade unions are doing in matters of this kind. Much of the success of this Bill will depend upon an organisation being prepared to accept in its ranks a man trained by some other organisation. The Minister already has an unqualified undertaking that there will be no demarcation line which will prevent the Bill being made effective. I can say this in my capacity as chairman of the Workmen's Compensation Committee of the Trades Union Congress.
Now I would like to refer to the promoters of this Bill. The Parliamentary Secretary was a weaver. He has woven into this Bill that spirit of kindliness and thoughtfulness which all who know him know that he possesses. We shall think of the Bill as the Tomlinson Bill, and it will always bring a picture of him to our minds. We shall carry into the operation of this Bill the spirit which he has shown of wanting to do the best possible for those who are suffering and to let nothing else stand in the way. The Minister of Labour, who was a transport worker, must have given the Parliamentary Secretary some ideas as to how to transport this Bill through a bumpy passage. There has been co-operation between these two Ministers and another Minister, who belongs to the industry with which I am connected, the printing industry. Although he does not happen to have been connected with this Bill, he must have lent weight to their counsels on it. From a coalition of this character we get this Bill, of which we shall take the greatest advantage. Speaking for the trade unionists of this country, I wish to thank these Ministers for having brought in the Bill, and the House for the reception which has been given to it.

Mr. Turton: I am very glad that the hon. Member for North Southwark (Mr. Isaacs) has made the speech which he has made, because the hon. Member for Leigh (Mr. Tinker), with whom I am usually in sympathy, if not in agreement, created a false impression when he expressed surprise at the fact that members of the Tory Party were supporting what he called "our point of view." While I give full credit to the Parliamentary Secretary for this Measure and the great work he has done, and the great human kindliness he has shown, a lot of the work in the past which has brought this Bill to fruition was actuated by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Lonsdale (Sir I. Fraser). Quite frankly, my view on this Bill has been radically altered by the great concession that was made by the Minister when he amended the Bill to give a preference to ex-Service men. Directly that concession was made, I think all of us felt that we were of one mind and one point of view regarding the Measure. We have acknowledged one of the debts that we owe.
I see one or two difficulties about this Measure. I hope it will not diminish the sense of responsibility which a good employer should have to the man who has been disabled in his industry. I hope that the Minister, in all the Regulations that he makes, in all the directives that he issues, will make it quite clear that an employer has a responsibility to his own industry's casualties. I think it would be a great pity if that feeling, which is very wide in many industries, was diminished because of this Bill. The Minister is going to govern the scale and scope of the Bill by Regulation. There will be a time when large numbers of men will be coming back from the Forces, anxious to get into employment. I hope that he will then regulate his quota to make due provision for that. I do not want the man who has fought and has come back, and who is really at a tremendous disadvantage, to find that this Bill is in any way a bar to his obtaining employment. I feel sure the Parliamentary Secretary will understand that. We have, by our joint efforts, improved this Bill a great deal, but when you improve a Measure you often leave a certain number of loose ends, and I suggest that when this Bill is considered in another place the drafting should be reconsidered. I congratulate the Government on having introduced the

Bill, the Parliamentary Secretary on the very helpful attitude he has shown towards all the Amendments, and the House on its good sense in facilitating its passage.

Mr. Messer: Third Reading speeches usually fall into two categories—valedictory and maledictory. On this occasion there has only been one type of Third Reading speech—the speech which welcomed the Bill. One feels that it is almost redundant to add to the chorus of praise accorded the Minister not merely for what the Bill does but for the manner in which it has been handled. I want to express my appreciation of the manner in which the Parliamentary Secretary has dealt with every point raised. I confess my inability to understand what he said on one of my Amendments, but he promised to write to me, and he did write to me on Clause 8 and I got a reply which is complete. That sort of treatment makes for smooth working.
I think it will be understood that the Bill, in itself, does not provide one man with a job. It does not provide one man with a place in a rehabilitation centre or a vocational course. What it does is to give the Minister the power of providing them, and the success of the Bill will lie not in its being on the Statute Book but in the way it will be administered. There are some who will quarrel with that and who will argue that we ought to have specifically stated in the Bill what it is going to do, but you simply cannot do that. For the Bill to be a success, it has to be resilient and elastic, and couched in a way that will enable those who administer it to fit particular circumstances and particular conditions at a particular time to particular types of people. You cannot lay that down in an Act of Parliament; you have got to provide the instrument under which it is done. If there were any warrant for assuming that it would not be done, then we would have to contradict the known facts, because the Bill is a superstructure on foundations which already exist. The training schemes are there. The Minister has already provided 42s. per week for a man who goes into training, with travelling allowances, meals and other allowances. That is in the Interim Report and is an earnest of what is to come.
Having said that, I think a Third Reading speech can be of very little


value unless it provides an opportunity for the expression of opinion as to how some people think the Bill ought to be worked, and I have very definite views on that. I think it will be very necessary to have liaison between the Minister of Health and the Minister of Labour. In the Interim Report just referred to there is a reference to Ministry of Labour officers interviewing patients in hospital. That is where your treatment starts—in the hospital—and, if you have one Department pursuing a course completely divorced from that of the Ministry of Labour you are not going to get the best results. I have some association with hospitals, and I have not yet been satisfied with the measure of the first steps which it is necessary to take. The patient, in his early days, should be given an opportunity of occupational therapy, which is very largely experimental and not by any means organised or co-ordinated. Nor do people in control of therapy departments appear clearly to know what it is they want.
Occupational therapy can be divided into three divisions. There is diversional occupational therapy, which has for its object the occupation of the mind of the patient, to relieve hospital boredom, make it possible for long-drawn-out cases to find some interest in life and permit the hours to be used in such a way that they will not bear too heavily on him. Apart from its psychological value, there is also a therapeutic value, which mainly consists of teaching the patient how to read and instructing him in handicrafts of various sorts, such as leathermaking, toy making and things of that description. It has no object beyond the period during which the patient is going through it. The second division of occupational therapy is what may be termed remedial. This is the type which has for its object the exercise of certain parts, the building-up of wasted muscles, the breaking-down of stiffened tissues—a real therapeutic purpose. This method does not teach a man to be a carpenter because a woodworker is wanted, but because in that work the man is doing himself some good.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Mr. Charles Williams): I do not wish to interrupt the hon. Member, but I think we are getting rather wide if we are to discuss various Ministries.

Mr. Messer: I want to link up the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Labour. I want to marry them——

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: We cannot take the marriage on the Third Reading of the Bill.

Mr. Messer: I will do my best not to transgress your Ruling, Sir. I just want to give to the Minister the idea that the Ministry of Health would be doing something which would be wasted effort unless there were this union with the Ministry of Labour to ensure a measure of selection in the types of occupation to which certain patients are directed. The Ministry of Labour comes in here. When a patient has obtained that degree of physical fitness, he should no longer be a hospital job. He should be directed to a rehabilitation centre. Those steps should be consecutive steps, linked up with each other. If, in the process that has gone before, you have done something more than merely train the patient to do a job, you may have discovered an aptitude for a particular kind of work, and one of the probable sources of great wasted effort is the unfitness of many people for the job they are called upon to do.
The third type of occupational therapy is purely industrial, the training of the man for work, and the value of this resettlement will lie in the effect of what you are doing to fit a man who can do a job well and putting him in the job that needs doing. There has been some misconception. I do not know whether it is thoroughly understood, but there has been an idea that the Bill seeks to build a ring fence round the disabled person, perpetuating his status as a disabled person. It does not propose to do anything of the sort. What it does propose to do is to take the normal disabled person out of a category and make him a person who can earn a week's wages as well as anybody else, and because of that I welcome the Bill. There was an attempt to restrict and limit the Bill in its operation. When one realises the vast amount of human misery that exists in the world—misery experienced by people who, by no stretch of imagination, can be held responsible for it—our sympathy is aroused. We see among children in the playground, one who can only just look on—an infantile paralysis case, perhaps, a cripple, blind or semi-blind. We see others suffering


from a disability, for which they are not responsible, which is not merely going to be an economic disadvantage to them in later life, but takes much of the joy of their present lives away from them. I see, in this Bill, hope for the hopeless, a future for the despairing, and cheer for those with whom we commiserate. I am grateful to the Minister for what he has done.

Mr. Erskine-Hill: I want to say how warmly I feel towards this Bill. It is a great achievement. For many years many of us have felt that those who were injured at their work should receive better consideration than they were able to get. Though individual employers no doubt did their best, still there was not the same certainty that full and adequate treatment would be given to rehabilitate the men. We felt, further, that after the rehabilitation process has been successfully conducted there should be an assurance of suitable work. I think the Ministry has faced this Bill in the right way. I think the Bill has been greatly strengthened by the criticism to which it has been subjected from various parts of the House, for that criticism was constructive. It will be a very bad thing for this House and the country if Ministers feel that any criticism directed at them in this House is unwarranted or if it is resented by them. That, I feel sure, is not the position of the Minister in this case, and I think he has shown it by very generously looking at the suggestions made. I want to congratulate the right hon. Gentleman and the House and wish the Bill well.

Lady Apsley: I take this opportunity of adding a word of very deep appreciation and of congratulation to the Minister concerned in bringing forward this Bill at the present time, and I would like to associate myself with those hon. Members who have already spoken in saving that it is a most valuable plank in building the better future we all desire—a future which, I am quite convinced myself, will not be built by talking or merely planning, and certainly not by wishful thinking, but by each of us taking a part and doing something constructive. I would like to refer to what the hon. Member for Southampton (Dr. R. Thomas) warned us about undue sentimentality. In my opinion this Bill steers

a very straight course between sentiment and sentimentality. Sentiment I would define as based on sympathy and knowledge, but sentimentality is something sticky, tiresome and extremely annoying to those who are handicapped by any disability. I think this Bill does steer very clearly away from sentimentality.
Therefore, I congratulate him, and particularly on the way in which he has met those of us who so sincerely desire preference for disabled ex-Servicemen and women. I thank him on their behalf, and I would like also to point out to the House how very valuable this concession will be to the enormous number of dependants on whom much of the burden of rehabilitation falls, and particularly the wives and mothers, who will find, and who know that they are going to find, great difficulties in helping the men and women belonging to them who come back from the war, unfortunately disabled, to start a new lease of life with a new aim and object. This wonderful new scheme will give them that hope for the future, enabling the disabled men and women to have an aim, something constructive to work for, and something to make the sweat and blood worth while. I thank him very much on their behalf.

Commander King-Hall: I only intervene for one minute to welcome this Bill and to say that in the previous Debate my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour made a remark which seemed to me very significant. He said that when he took up office he found about 180,000 people who had been written off as of no further value to the community and he was shocked by that fact and he had got the figure down to 18,000. Incidentally, I was glad to be able to get that information across in an overseas broadcast because I thought it was a very significant and important result. It perhaps has not had the publicity that I hoped it would receive and that is why I repeat it again and I hope that the Press will take note of this remarkable fact. It is in the spirit in which we approached the task of cutting down that figure of 180,000 to 18,000 that this country will have to tackle its postwar problems. I am sure that this Bill will make a very valuable contribution to the machinery required and that with the idea behind the Bill of tackling post-war problems in that spirit everybody will be


able and willing to do their bit and make their contribution to the national income.

Mr. Granville: I would like to add my congratulations to the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Labour and to the Joint Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of Labour for their great amount of work in introducing this Bill, which I regard as a considerable attempt to keep faith with those men and women who have given of their best in serving their country. There is good reason for the tributes to the Joint Parliamentary Secretary. One of my hon. Friends below the Gangway referred to this Bill as becoming known as the Tomlinson Act and I think that that will be so and that the hon. Gentleman will find this fame has come to him comparatively early in his Parliamentary career. I want to thank him also because he has taken the trouble to go round to the factories of this country, on personal visits, including the various war factories, to make direct contact with the management and workpeople in those factories. I want to tell him what a tremendous amount of good this is doing all round. He will, I am sure, have noticed during his visits to these towns that many of the local factories have instituted medical clinics, and I hope that a certain amount of the work can be undertaken by these clinics, where there are first class industrial medical officers, many of whom are following the course of this Bill and its effect on the future with interest. The hon. Member for South Tottenham (Mr. Messer) spoke of an attempt to make effective co-operation between the Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Health and, of course, this is an important point, but the Joint Parliamentary Secretary knows it, and I hope that these clinics through this understanding will be used to the full in much of the preliminary work envisaged in this Bill to help disabled persons.
The hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Lonsdale (Sir I. Fraser), who always speaks with skill and distinction on these questions, referred to this Bill as a good example of the product of a Council of State or the working of a coalition in its best sense, and I regard it as such. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Labour will not be discouraged from introducing Bills of this character, or discouraged by some of the small Parliamentary incidents of the type which occurred yesterday.—[Interrup-

tion.] —Yes, but the right hon. Gentleman, although a towering figure in the public life of this country, is to a certain extent comparatively new to Parliamentary debate. In the shaping of these Bills it is the constructive arguments which often produce a good Bill. The right hon. Gentleman must expect a certain amount of the sort of thing which happened yesterday in the speech of the hon. and gallant Member for Stafford (Major Thorneycroft) in introducing these Bills in a democratic assembly, but I hope sincerely that he will go on introducing them.

The Minister of Labour (Mr. Ernest Bevin): It is like water running off a duck's back.

Mr. Granville: I do not know whether it is like water on the right hon. Gentleman's back or not but I think he can look after himself. He referred in his speech to the question of why he is here and the directions he first received from the Prime Minister and all the rest of it.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Yes, but that would not be in Order now.

Mr. Granville: I bow to your Ruling, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. The right hon. Gentleman has not said that now, and I hope that he is not going to say it again and that he will not be discouraged by fair criticism from introducing these Bills. If this Parliament is going on for another year, 18 months or two years or however long——

Dr. Russell Thomas: Twenty years.

Mr. Granville: My hon. Friend says 20 years. He is a political optimist, but it may be that we shall go on for another 18 months or two years and if we are to lay the foundation of post-war reconstruction, the groundwork must be begun now, during this Parliament. The right hon. Gentleman has to come here and to introduce contributions of this kind. If we are to work as a Council of State I am sure he will recognise that these discussions will help in the production of these early Measures and we shall be helping forward necessary measures for the post-war period.

Mr. Murray: I feel that I would be acting in a very cowardly manner to-day if I sat still and did not say a word on the Third Reading of this Bill. Some time ago it was my privilege,


in this House, to introduce a certain amount of heat into a speech that I made dealing with the rejects of industry, and needless to say I am very glad, to-day, that the Joint Parliamentary Secretary has had such success with this Bill. I am also glad that his colleague has had such success in my division with these very people. He promised to come to my division and he willingly did so, and to-day a new hope has come to many of these people. I am delighted to say that a great amount of success has come as a result of that visit of the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to my constituency. People to-day are coming to me and saying how pleased they are, not because they have opted into work at the moment but because they have been summoned to go to the factories to be medically examined. They feel that a new light has come into their life, giving them new hope and a new vision, and, therefore, I am delighted that the Joint Parliamentary Secretary has had such success. While this Bill will not give to these people or to any people the right to employment, it will give them a new outlook on life, which, I am sure, will be regarded as a great triumph.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mr. Tomlinson): It is my turn to begin expressing thanks after all the thanks that have been expressed and the congratulations that have been showered upon me. I want to say "Thank you" to the House not only for the way in which it permitted an amateur to introduce a Bill of this kind, but for being so kindly disposed towards me that it was a pleasure to do so. I want to say thanks too, at this stage of the Bill to those who do the work behind the scenes. The Tomlinson Report has been referred to. It deals with the unfortunates, and if my name had to be associated with anything at all in connection with this country or any other country, I would not wish that it should be associated with anything other than that. My hon. Friend suggested—and I do not want to go over individual arguments we have had with regard to the Bill—that the glory of the nation is in its fit men. That may be so, but I believe that the soul of the nation can only be found in the way that it expresses itself towards its, unfortunates.
I want to say "Thank you" to those members of the Inter-Departmental Committee who drew up and did the work in connection with the Tomlinson Report upon which this Bill is founded. It may be that the association of names with the report leads people to wrong conclusions. It is not the Tomlinson Report, in the sense that it is my own work. It is the Tomlinson Report, for the simple reason that I was the chairman of that committee. It is the work of the committee, and I can assure the House that I was honoured and privileged to have the advantage of presiding over it and of receiving a great deal of education in the process of its sittings. I also want to say a word of thanks to my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General, who in Committee dealt with some of the points that, I frankly admit, I did not understand.
The hon. Member for Thirsk (Mr. Turton) to-day suggested that there might be drafting points chat would need looking at between now and the time the Measure goes to another place. Frankly, it I were asked whether there were any such points, I could not tell him. There may be, and if the people responsible for these things find that there are points that need to be put right, that will be done. I can assure the hon. Member that they often put a thing right even before I have seen that it is wrong. Sometimes in an Amendment the words substituted seemed to me to mean the same thing, and I having arrived at an understanding only after it has been carefully explained that one word in a given context means one thing, whereas in another it means something else. All I am concerned about is that as a result of the co-operation of those responsible the desires of the Tomlinson Report should be put into a Bill which will be workable and which will give to the unfortunates in the community that hope about which the hon. Member spoke just a few minutes ago. Again, I want to say that I cannot understand the individual who wants to restrict good works. I can understand a little the desire for preference—we all can—and there are circumstances in which we have tried to meet it, but to restrict good works is a frame of mind which I cannot understand.
I was asked for one or two assurances. My hon. Friend the Member for North Hackney (Sir A. Hudson) asked for in-


stance whether this Bill covered the tuberculosis case. Of course it does. I see this Bill in its application giving to the tuberculous something more hopeful than I have seen in that direction for a long time. I see the possibility of being able to utilise the Bill for the rebuilding of those who can be rebuilt and for the assistance of those who have got past rebuilding. The fact that they have that dread disease means, that they are handicapped in obtaining and retaining employment, and that is the test. May I refer here to that wedding which could not take place to-day—the wedding of the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Labour in connection with this matter? The development of medical science and its application will reduce the number of people who, eventually, find themselves on the Register, and the Bill will carry out what it is intended to do before medical science has reached that point. Hence the necessity for the continuation of the inquiries which are taking place, the experiments that are going on, the new discoveries—penicillin for instance—the effect it will have in the future in reducing the number of amputations. This is what I would call pre-rehabilitation work and therefore we must be willing, not only to help it forward but to do all we can to see that the facilities are available for that purpose.
That brings me to my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, Central (Lady Apsley) who suggested that, in spite of the fact that we are passing legislation and that there is an attempt to help these people who have been cast down because of disability, there is the necessity still for those of us who are interested to do our share in the work. That will always remain. Reference was made to my visits to the factories. Time and again, I have visited not only factories but employers' organisations and associations, because it is not enough to compel the employer by Act of Parliament to take on a number of individuals. You must have his co-operation. The hon. Member for Thirsk suggested that you must have the employers' co-operation, if the work of these disabled people is to be used to the best advantage and if you are to get the best out of this Measure. I have no doubt, from my experience up to now of this subject, that the vast majority of the employers of this country are willing and eager to help in this work. Not one,

but half-a-dozen experiments are taking place at this moment on the lines laid down in the Bill, where rehabilitation and training and occupational therapy are taking place in the workshops themselves, under medical supervision, bringing, as it were, the co-operation set out in the Bill, into effect upon a voluntary basis before the Measure has become an Act of Parliament.
The hon. Member for Colchester (Mr. Lewis) referred to a promise made, I think, by my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General on the Committee stage with regard to the position of Government Departments. This promise was made in answer to the hon. Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Pickthorn) on the question whether an annual report could be presented to the House, on the number of people employed in Government Departments. Having considered that, the arrangement will be made for a formal statement to be presented to Parliament each year, showing the number of registered disabled persons in the Government's employ and the percentage of this number to the total number of employees. The exact form of the statement has not yet been decided, but it will enable comparison to be made between the position of Government Departments and other employers who are subject to the statutory obligations. That is a definite understanding which Parliament will have. One or two other questions which we were asked by Members, on the Committee stage, to consider, have been looked at, and where it has been possible, note has been taken of the points that were made. The hon. Member for East Wolverhampton (Mr. Mander) informed me that he could not be present and asked if I could refer to the question he raised as to whether the pilots of the Air Transport Auxiliary could not be included in the list of priorities. With all the will in the world, it has been found impossible to do so without at the same time broadening the scope by bringing in all kinds of other classes who have served in Civil Defence. Therefore, we intend that it will remain in the words provided in the Schedule. May I say a word of thanks, in conclusion, to the Members of the House for their kindness and consideration; a word of thanks to the staff for the way in which they have made it possible for this


Measure to be brought before the House, and for the speed with which they have constantly worked and for the great assistance they have rendered.

Dr. Russell Thomas: Could my hon. Friend apply his mind to the point I made as to whether this Bill would have the effect of pushing employed men to the wall in a time of post-war unemployment?

Mr. Tomlinson: That question was dealt with on the Second Reading.

Dr. Thomas: I only want it made clear.

Mr. Tomlinson: The answer to my hon. Friend's question would be that all this Bill does is to ensure that, in any time of misfortune, a percentage of those who are more unfortunate than others will receive consideration, whatever the position of the country may be.

Question, "That the Bill be now read the Third time," put, and agreed to.

Bill read the Third time, and passed.

LANDLORD AND TENANT (REQUISI- TIONED LAND) BILL. [Lords.]

Considered in Committee.

[Mr. CHARLES WILLIAMS in the Chair]

CLAUSE 1.—(Modification of obligations under repairing covenants in respect of damage occurring during a requisition of leaseholds.)

The Solicitor-General (Major Sir David Maxwell Fyfe): I beg to move, in page 1, line 11, to leave out "where," and to insert:
if the lease determines while possession of the land is so retained, or if.
This Amendment deals with the position when the lease in question ends, during the requisitioning of the land. There may be circumstances arising between the end of the lease and the end of the requisitioning period, which prevent the landlord recovering compensation, and still make it unfair that he should recover under the covenant against the tenant. An obvious example is where the Crown, as requisitioning authority, instead of paying the landlord the compensation does the repairs which were necessary to the land. It would be quite unfair, in those circum-

stances, that the landlord should have a right against his tenant, but that right would crystallise at the end of the period of the lease. We, therefore, suggest by this Amendment that the right under the Covenant should be taken away in these circumstances, and we believe this to be fair because the covenantor at any rate can never get the compensation.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Remaining Clauses ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Bill reported, with an Amendment; as amended, considered.

Motion made, "That the Bill be now read the Third time."—(King's Consent signified.)

Bill read the Third time, and passed with an Amendment.

GUARDIANSHIP (REFUGEE CHILDREN) BILL [Lords]

Order for Second Reading read.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Peake): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
The purpose of this Bill is clear from its Title. There are, approximately, 12,500 children now in this country who have come here either as war refugees or else on account of persecution—that is to say, children from the Channel Islands or Gibraltar or the Continent of Europe. Approximately 8,500 children came here in the years 1936–1939 from Central Europe under arrangements ma de by the Refugee Children's Movement, and 3,500 have come here from the Channel Islands since the outbreak of war. There are still about 400 of the children who came to this country during the Spanish civil war, and there are a few, as I have said, evacuated from Gibraltar. There is nobody at the present time who stands in the place of a parent to these children.
We all know from our experience the troubles that arise through lack of parental control, but in regard to these children it is not so much that the children themselves have been in mischief; it is that there is no authority to settle questions which arise from time to time concerning them. There are, for example, dis-


putes as to their custody. These children have been found homes, voluntarily for the most part, in this country. Sometimes the home is, in the view of the persons who brought the child here, unsatisfactory and it may be desirable for the child to be moved. But there is no one who can insist on that being done. Again, in the case of young persons desirous of getting married under the legal age, the consent of a parent or guardian is necessary and there is no person by whom such consent can be given. There is also, of course, the difficult question—in regard to which certain Jewish organisations have recently expressed some anxiety—of the religious education of these children.
The Bill provides, in Clause 1, Subsection (1), that the Home Secretary may appoint a guardian to any person who fulfils the conditions laid down in that Clause. These are, first, that the person came here after the end of 1936 in consequence of the war or of religious, racial or political persecution; secondly, that there is no parent of the child in the United Kingdom and, thirdly, that the child has not attained the age of 21 years or, in the case of a female, is already married. Sub-section (2) provides that, where a guardian is appointed under this Bill, that guardian shall, to a certain extent, be able to delegate his powers to such societies or persons as he considers suitable to act on his behalf.
I want to make it quite clear that it is not the intention under this Bill to appoint separate individual guardians for each child. There is a large number of children here, and if the Home Office had to pick individual guardians for each child, and satisfy itself that these guardians were carrying out their duties properly, we would have to set up a separate administrative division of the Home Office. What we intend to do is to appoint suitable persons for suitable groups of children, and, for that reason, we desire the appointed guardians to have certain limited powers of delegating responsibility. Of course, if any important question arises which affects the welfare of the child directly, then a duty will lie upon the guardian to give personal consideration to the case. Sub-section (4) of Clause 1 provides for the revocation of the appointment of a guardian by the Home Secretary at any time, and it imposes a duty upon my right hon. Friend

to revoke the appointment if the parent of the child at any time applies. It is always possible that the parents of these children will turn up, or that they may be able themselves to make certain arrangements. In that case, upon application, the Home Secretary will revoke the appointment of the nominated guardian.

Mr. Montague: Will or may?

Mr. Peake: The precise words of the Clause are these:
He shall revoke such appointment on the application of a parent of the ward unless he is satisfied that proper arrangements have not been made by the parent for the care of the ward.
I think that is satisfactory. We also make it clear in the Clause that the powers of the High Court in relation to guardians are fully retained, that is to say, on application to the High Court a guardian may be removed by the High Court. The proposals in the Bill do not, in any way, override or interfere with the duties and responsibility of the High Court in regard to the guardianship of the child. I do not imagine there are any other points in the Bill which hon. Members would wish me to refer to at this stage, but if there are either I, with the leave of the House, or my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General will do our best to explain them.

Commander King-Hall: In regard to the appointment of these guardians, is the Home Office likely to be in touch with certain organisations specially concerned with children? I have in mind the "Save the Children Fund"

Mr. Peake: Most certainly. We have consulted all the organisations connected with these children in preparing this Bill. They are all favourable to the proposals in the Measure and we shall consult them in regard to the appointment of guardians.

Mr. Maxton: It seems that there is to be a sort of public trustee for refugee children. What sort of person has the right hon. Gentleman in mind? Is it to be a public official?

Mr. Butcher: I do not want to detain the House for more than a minute or two. Everybody recognises that this is a useful and pro-


per Bill to bring forward at this time. It makes one wonder how the Government have managed to do without it up to the present, because I am sure there have been considerable difficulties. Merely for elucidation, I would like to ask the Solicitor-General to explain further the idea of block guardianship. Are we to have a large number of these children, coming from the Channel Islands, put under the care of some responsible citizen form those Islands, who will be responsible for them or, alternatively, will they be allocated, so far as may be, with friends and relatives of their parents who have no local standing but who are on terms of friendship and intimacy with them? Another question I would like to ask is about the guardianship of those children who are not of British nationality. Is it proposed that the guardians appointed for them shall be of British nationality, or persons of the country of origin from which the children came?

The Solicitor-General (Major Sir David Maxwell Fyfe): With regard to the appointment of guardians there will be clear and obvious groups into which the children will fall—the Channel Islands group, the Czech group and so on—and they will, of necessity, be divided into geographical groups according to where they are situated. The supplementary idea is that there will be guardians for the children who are in different parts of the country. In answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) as to the type of person, the suggestion is that the people who have been doing this voluntary work, with great success and sacrifice and kindness on their part, will be used for this purpose. I think it would be convenient that they should be of British nationality, but the overriding idea in their selection will be to use people who have already devoted themselves to this admirable work.

Sir Percy Harris: I want to impress on the Home Office the great importance of a Bill of this kind. It is one of the great tragedies of the war that thousands of people throughout occupied countries have lost contact with their parents and relatives. I have no doubt that the Home Office have in mind that, as the enemy are driven further back and we open our

Second Front, it is possible that a large number of refugee children may be thrown on our hands. This is a work of mercy and I would like to congratulate the Home Office on having the foresight to bring in this Bill. But the human factor does come in and they have a great responsibility to think out very carefully the kind of foster-parents to whom these children will be entrusted.
From my own knowledge, I can say that some magnificent work has been, and is being, done by people in this country in looking after children who have lost their homes and parents. Nevertheless, there is a danger—and I am sure the Home Office is aware of it—of unsuitable people becoming the guardians of these children. The point about block guardians ought to be cleared up. Have the Government in mind groups of persons and organisations being made guardians or will individuals in every case be personally responsible? The idea of farming out their responsibility is rather distasteful. If they do this, they have a responsibility to see that the persons who take over are equally competent. At a time when there is a great shortage of persons free to do this work, and when almost every married woman is up to her eyes in work at home and elsewhere, it must be very difficult to find suitable people. It makes the task of the Home Office very difficult. What we all wish to ensure is that nobody should exploit this work for financial gain.

Mr. Lipson: As many A these children are of the Jewish faith I would like to make one or two observations on this matter. I agree with what my right hon. Friend the Member for South-West Bethnal Green (Sir P. Harris) said with regard to the care which is being and has been shown by so many people towards these children, in striking contrast to what they have had to undergo in less happy lands. As a result of what has taken place in so many countries in Europe, many Jewish children have, unfortunately, died. Therefore, it is all the more necessary to safeguard the religious faith of those who have been fortunate enough to survive, particularly those who have been fortunate enough to come to these islands.
I would like the Government to give an assurance that proper arrangements will be made, so far as is practicable, to see that these children are entrusted to


guardians who will have regard to the religious faith of the parents of these children, so far as this is known. Many Jewish children here have been living in Christian households and I know how extremely careful their hosts have been to see that the children were able to follow their own particular form of religious faith. But there have been others who, from a zeal one can understand, and perhaps because opportunities for Jewish observance were not easily accessible, felt it was right for the children to attend other places of worship and who have acted in a way which has been disturbing to those who wish these children to be brought up in the faith of their parents Therefore, I should like to ask my right hon. Friend if the religious authorities of the Jewish community are being consulted about the choice of guardians for Jewish children and if everything will be done to safeguard the religious faith of these children. We are all extremely grateful for what has been done in looking after the material side of these children's lives and we hope that their spiritual welfare will not be neglected.

Mr. Montague: I do not find in the Bill any special attention being given to religious education, as applying not only to Jews but to other sections as well. I do not know whether the Under-Secretary has anything further to say on the matter.

Mr. Peake: New arrivals of children in this country will, of course, be covered by the Bill. We intend to appoint separate guardians for large groups of children, but the guardians will not be corporate bodies or committees. They will be individuals with a high degree of personal responsibility for the welfare of the children. There will, certainly, be different guardians for the different national groups, Spanish, Czech, German and so forth, There may also be separate guardians according to the geographical situation of the children, that is to say, whether they are in Scotland, England or Northern Ireland, but on that point I should not like to be dogmatic at this stage, because we have not yet selected the persons who are to be appointed.

Sir P. Harris: Is the right hon. Gentleman satisfied that suitable persons will be available?

Mr. Peake: I do not think there will be any great difficulty about that. The duties

obviously will be responsible and onerous, but we have such excellent organisations which have been taking care of the children already, that I do not doubt that from those bodies suitable personnel can be found. In arranging for the care of these children, one of the most important considerations is that regard shall be paid to their religious persuasion and that care shall be taken to ensure that children belonging to a particular persuasion shall not be deprived of facilities for religious training and shall not be subjected to any form of proselytising which would be obnoxious to the views of the religious body to which the child's parents belong. The organisations responsible for the care of these children are fully conscious of the importance of this consideration and there has been no failure on their part to keep this principle prominently in mind; but as things stand at present, if any organisation should find that some foster-parents are failing to observe this principle, the organisation has no authority to remove the child if the foster-parents are obstinate.
One of the advantages of the Bill is that, when a legal guardian is appointed, that guardian will have authority to take any necessary steps to safeguard the child's religious education and, moreover, win have a legal duty to take such steps. This is a matter to which the Home Office has given close attention and the question was considered whether any express provision on this subject should be inserted in the Bill. We are, however, advised that under the existing law a child should be brought up in the religious faith of the father unless the father has waived his rights by allowing the child to be brought up in some other religion, and that in effect therefore there is a legal duty on the guardian to bring up his ward in the religion to which the child belongs. An express provision in the Bill is, therefore, unnecessary and it is undesirable to attempt to embody the principle in the Statute. I hope hon. Members will be satisfied that this important question is fully covered.

Question, "That the Bill be now read a Second time," put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Committee of the Whole House.—[Mr. Drew.]

Committee upon the next Sitting Day.

NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE CITY COUNCIL (TRIBUNAL OF IN- QUIRY)

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That it is expedient that a Tribunal be established for inquiring into a definite matter of urgent public importance, that is to say, the administration by the Council of the City and County of Newcastle-upon-Tyne and its Committees and Officers of their functions in relation to the Fire, Police and Civil Defence Services with particular reference to the disposal of fire-engine B.B. 999, the acquisition and use as a fire float of the East Coast Scottish fishing vessel called "The Premier" and the use of personnel, food, stores and equipment intended for the aforesaid Services."—[Mr. Peake.]

Mr. Maxton: I made some comment on the Business set down for the fourth Sitting Day at the time it was announced and said it resembled a sort of jumble sale. That was on the items announced, but I cannot remember any announcement about the disposal of this fire-engine B.B. 999. I thought that number was kept for convicts. The other matter involved in this Motion, the acquisition and use as a fire float of the East Coast Scottish vessel called "The Premier" and the use of personnel, food, stores and equipment intended for the aforesaid Services, was not announced as Business to be taken on this day. Looking round, I cannot see a solitary Member who comes from this particular area. The Government have had a good day. They have done very well, and it would be taking advantage of the generosity and kindness of Members who are here, to attempt to commit us to this inquiry when we are completely uninformed as to its object and the people who are primarily and principally concerned are absent.

Commander King-Hall: I support the hon. Member's view, but the point that I was rising to make was this. You, Sir, were about to put the Question whether this tribunal should be set up, and I wanted to inquire what sort of tribunal it was to be and whether we could have any details about it. Can that be made clear to the House?

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Peake): I should, perhaps, have said a few words when the Motion was called from the Chair, but there have been Questions and answers given recently. On 16th December the hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Ivor Thomas) asked the Home Secretary

whether he proposes to comply with the request of the council of the city and county of Newcastle-upon-Tyne to institute an inquiry into the administration of the watch committee of the council and, in particular, into its conduct with regard to the disposal of a fire engine.
My right hon. Friend replied:
Yes, Sir. I decided to comply with this request, and Mr. Roland Burrows, K.C., was good enough to accept my invitation to hold an inquiry into this matter. While preparations were being made for the holding of this Inquiry, other allegations of a serious character were brought to my notice reflecting on the administration of branches of the Civil Defence Services. It will, I think, be in the public interest to extend, the scope of the proposed Inquiry so as to enable these further allegations to be investigated. Certain preliminary inquiries are being made but I hope that it will be possible to begin the Inquiry into all the matters requiring investigation early in the New Year."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th December, 1943; col. 1678, Vol. 395.]
Yesterday, the hon. and gallant Member for North St. Pancras (Wing-Commander Grant-Ferris) asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department
whether he is in a position to make any further statement regarding his proposal to extend the scope of his inquiry into the administration of the Watch Committee of the Council of the City and County of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, so as to enable further allegations reflecting on the administration of branches of the Civil Defence Services to be investigated.
My right hon. Friend replied:
Yes, Sir. I am satisfied, as a result of the preliminary inquiries to which I referred in my reply to a Question by my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Mr. Ivor Thomas) on 16th December last, that it would be desirable in the public interest to widen the scope of the proposed inquiry so as to enable further allegations reflecting on the administration of branches of the Civil Defence Services to be investigated, and the Council of the City and County of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, whom I have consulted, concur in my view. I am also satisfied that it would be desirable that this inquiry should be held in public, and that there should be power to compel the attendance of witnesses and to take evidence on oath. I accordingly proposed that the inquiry shall be held by a tribunal to which the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act, 1921, will be applied, and the necessary Resolution for this purpose will be submitted to each House of Parliament at the earliest opportunity."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 3rd February, 1944; col. 1400, Vol. 396.]
I think that explains the circumstances in which this Resolution comes before the House. Very serious charges have been made against certain members on the city council in Newcastle. Mr. Roland Burrows reported that, in his view, these powers of compelling witnesses


and so forth, which this Resolution will give, are necessary. We have, in fact, taken advice as to whether, on the information so far disclosed, a prosecution will lie, but we are told that proceedings are not possible and I am sure the House will accept the view that my right hon. Friend is only doing his public duty in undertaking——

Mr. Maxton: I am not suggesting for a moment that the right hon. Gentleman is not doing his public duty, nor that this is not a right and proper proceeding.

Mr. Peake: I think the House will be satisfied that it is a proper proceeding. The hon. Member will see from the terms of the Motion that it speaks of a definite matter of urgent public importance. I can reassure my hon. Friend by saying that the Members of Parliament for the city of Newcastle have been apprised of this position, and my right hon. Friend has seen some of them. I cannot say whether he has seen them all, for one of them is ill. They know what is being done, and if they had a view to put forward, they would undoubtedly have been here to-day.

Mr. Montague: Do we understand that the fire engine was sold to North St. Pancras?

Mr. Peake: I am afraid that I do not know the precise position of North St. Pancras in this matter.

Question put, and agreed to.

Resolved:
That it is expedient that a Tribunal be established for inquiring into a definite matter of urgent public importance, that is to say, the administration by the Council of the City and County of Newcastle-upon-Tyne and its Committees and Officers of their functions in relation to the Fire, Police, and Civil Defence Services, with particular reference to the disposal of fire engine B.B. 999, the acquisition and use as a fire float of the East Coast Scottish fishing vessel called 'The Premier' and the use of personnel, food, stores and equipment intended for the aforesaid Services.

A.R.P. CENTRE, DOWNHAM MARKET

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—(Mr. Drewe).

Captain De Chair: I am grateful to you, Mr. Speaker,

for allowing me to catch your eye. In doing so I am availing myself of the right which every Private Member possesses of raising the grievances of the smallest township in his constituency that is subjected to the pin-pricks of a petty bureaucratic tyranny, whether this tyranny masquerades in the form of an arrogant county council or a pompous Civil Defence Commissioner. Naturally, before raising these matters in the House, I adopted all the usual methods of personal persuasion, and even attempted the chances of Parliamentary Question and answer. On 10th December I asked the Home Secretary
whether he is aware that the Eastern Regional Commissioner has issued an order to move the A.R.P. report centre in Downham Market from the place where it has functioned for four years to a building which the voluntary workers upon whom the smooth working of the A.R.P. arrangements depend, regard as less suitable and if he will suspend this action until an impartial investigation has been held.
The Home Secretary replied:
Full inquiries were made both by the scheme-making authority and the Regional Commissioner as to the necessity of the changes before a decision was reached. I am satisfied that the decision was in accord both with local needs and the proper working of the Civil Defence Services. The accommodation at the existing control centre was quite unsatisfactory."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th December, 1943; cols. 1255–6, Vol. 395.]
I shall endeavour to convince the House that the right hon. Gentleman was completely misinformed. One might ask, in the first place, whether or not this town of Downham Market is notably lax in its public duty and requires this prodding from above. I am happy to say, however, that Downham Market is noted for its public spirit throughout Norfolk, and, although it comprises scarcely 2,000 voters, it subscribed enough money during a recent warship week to provide for a destroyer. This destroyer when built did not content itself with patrolling the wide horizons of the Arctic Ocean, but rushed to within 400 yards of a German battleship before launching its torpedoes. That was the destroyer "Stord" when it attacked the "Scharnhorst." Those who know Downham Market will not be surprised that any destroyer adopted by this town should act in this impetuous fashion. Indeed, Downham Market was probably a strong point for Hereward the Wake in his resistance, and it was from Downham Market and South-West Norfolk that Cromwell drew his Ironsides. And this


is the town which the Regional Commissioner is now trying to push around! I could have warned him of the unwisdom of that course, having been acquainted with the town for a number of years.
The present issue centres round the air-raid precautions arrangement of this town. It is argued by the Regional Commissioner and defended by the Home Secretary in this House that the control centre is quite inadequate for its purpose. I have visited this centre and satisfied myself that it is in every way adequate so far as I can see. It has functioned smoothly during four years of war, and the voluntary workers are all convinced that it is unnecessary to move it. I have seen the various reports of the Regional Commissioner on this building, and they would give the impression to the Under-Secretary, if he studied them, that this control centre was a mere basement room in which there was hardly room to stand up. That is not at all the case. This centre is housed in a large brick building. It is approached by a broad side road nicely away from the traffic. It has a considerable open space in front of it, and even a garden path—up which, I think, the right hon. Gentleman was led. You enter the building on the ground floor, where the control room is situated. Here are the telephone switchboard, maps and everything that is required. When I visited it, it seemed to me cosy and convenient. On the floor above is a large administrative office with an adjoining vestibule, both of which are well lighted. There two permanent officials conduct their immense amount of paper work. In the basement is a splinter-proof room, which is small, where the voluntary workers sit. They have a wireless to keep them happy and they can do their knitting during their hours of duty if there are no raids, and they would be able to shelter there if there were.
This set of rooms would be considered entirely adequate for a battalion headquarters in any garrison town, and this would mean the administration of some 800 people. It is not less commodious and convenient than others I have visited. It has functioned smoothly during four years of war and throughout the worst that the Hun was able to inflict on us during the Battle of Britain and in the height of the blitz. Now suddenly, in the fifth year of the war, the A. R.P. official

from the county council descends upon it and says that it is inadequate for the purposes of a report centre. This coincides, strangely enough, with the opinion of the two permanent officials that the accommodation is not in keeping with their dignity, and, like all permanent officials, they would like to be housed in a more palatial building. Immediately the question arises why, if this report centre has not enough room, did not the Regional Defence Commissioner requisition the whole of the building in which it is situated. The whole building was, in fact, offered to the Regional Commissioner for this purpose when the original requisition took place, but he did not consider it necessary. The rest of the accommodation was taken over by the Ministry of Food. Surely it is rather late in the day for the Regional Commissioner now to step forth and say that the centre must be removed because there is not enough accommodation for it in the present building.
However, if he is determined upon the course of removing the centre, there are various other buildings in the town available, of which I and others have given him particulars. Does he avail himself of those alternatives? No; with unerring instinct he chooses the one place in the whole town where there is already installed an efficient voluntary mobile ambulance unit. It may be said that it is not a very great matter to turn out an efficient mobile ambulance unit and ask it to go somewhere else, but that would show a complete lack of understanding of the local conditions. We must carry our minds back to the urgent days of the Battle of Britain, when patriotic people took the most appropriate and immediate action without waiting for forms in triplicate and the rest of it before getting down to the job. At that time Dr. Gibb, a prominent local practitioner, organised this ambulance unit, and, finding that the casual wards of the Poor Law institution were unoccupied, installed the unit there. Perhaps he should have waited until 30 or 40 letters had passed between himself and the Regional Commissioner. He did not do so. He got on with the job. He communicated with the chairman of the Guardians Committee, under whom the casual wards are administered, and the chairman gave him his complete approval. This public-spirited doctor then spent £60 or £70 of his own money in installing the unit efficiently.
Now, at this stage of the war along comes a petty A.R.P. official of the Norfolk County Council by the name of Captain Berney-Ficklin. He seems to consider it his duty to deputise for God Almighty or the Regional Commissioner—I am not sure which—by annoying as many people as he can and upsetting all the voluntary workers upon whom this Civil Defence organisation depends. He orders the ambulance unit of the patriotic Dr. Gibb to quit these premises and move into others which are occupied by another Civil Defence unit, which in turn must move out and find accommodation elsewhere. All this would be bad enough, but, to add insult to injury, it is argued that this is done with the approval of the A.R.P. workers themselves. This is too much even for me. This town is literally goaded to distraction by an ignorant bureaucracy in the name of the Regional Commissioner for the Eastern Civil Defence Region. The fact of the matter is that the Regional Commissioner is simply a rubber stamp, and he has rubber stamped my constituents until they are purple in the face. Before raising this matter in the House I took every step to persuade the Regional Commissioner to alter his decision, but he is obdurate. He writes to me:
I am informed that the staff at the existing report centre have been very dissatisfied with the conditions under which they have been required to work since the beginning of the war and it is only their loyalty and the personality of their officers that has enabled an adequate service to be maintained under very trying conditions. They are all very much relieved to know that at last something was being done to ameliorate these conditions.
I would draw attention to the word "all" because it refers to the permanent officials. The remaining 40 or 50 voluntary workers are all violently opposed to the scheme.

Mr. Butcher: Has the Regional Commissioner himself been anywhere near Downham Market?

Captain De Chair: I believe that he did on one occasion visit it, and he appears to have gone only into the small basement room and to have come away with the impression that that is all that the report centre consists of. In a last attempt to bring the authorities in question to see reason, I appealed to this Captain Berney-Ficklin, the A.R.P. official for the Norfolk County Council, and suggested to him, as

an honourable way out of this impasse, that it would be natural for him as the A.R.P. official to wish to see the A.R.P. officials in the region installed in the most palatial building possible, but that he would not want to call upon the voluntary workers to make a change to which they are all opposed. I therefore suggested, what was a natural procedure, that he should call a meeting of the voluntary A.R.P. workers and explain to them that he wanted to have the report centre moved, but that, if the majority were overwhelmingly against it, he would not wish to force it upon them. The only reply has been for them to hurry forward the work, no doubt in the hope that a fait accompli would prevent me from taking any definite action about it in this House.
There remains the argument put forward by the Regional Commissioner as to not taking any of the alternative accommodation that has been suggested. It is that it would require the expenditure of some £325 to condition one of the houses which were suggested and which is at present empty and available, and that it would cost only £100 to prepare the casual wards of the institution to receive this report centre. My unofficial information is that the work which is now being done to accommodate the report centre in the casual ward, will, in fact, cost nearer £400, and if it is proceeded with—I very much hope that it will be stopped—I shall attempt an another occasion to raise the whole question of the expenditure and to see the actual figures of the contractors for the whole job done.
In conclusion although it may seem that this is only a storm in a teacup compared with the great issues of the war, it raises wider issues. Is it really necessary, in the fifth year of the war, when some voluntary workers who have carried the burden, without the glamour, of active service with patience and with fortitude, are naturally feeling some war weariness and strain, to harry them in this obstinate fashion? It raises very forcibly the question whether the organisation of Regional Commissions, which was set up in 1940 when, for the purpose of meeting invasion, the country was divided into regions, has not outlived its usefulness and is not now merely adding an extra wheel to the juggernaut of bureaucracy which is crushing the spirit of a free people. What useful purpose, one is bound to ask, is served at


this stage of the war by the Regional Commissioners in general and the Regional Commissioner for the Eastern Counties in particular? Yet they still have these immense powers conferred upon them, and it seems that they can bully or harry us, without let or hindrance.
In writing to the Regional Commissioner I said that I was confident that if he realised the mistake he was making he would be willing to admit it and countermand the instructions he had given, if he was a big enough man, but this was a forlorn hope. Therefore, I have no alternative but to appeal to this House and to the Under-Secretary of State to stop the move of this report centre to the casual ward, to stop this senseless reorganisation of the Civil Defence arrangements in Downham Market. When I raised this matter by Question in the House and asked the Home Secretary if he would have an impartial investigation, he would not agree to it. Therefore, I repeat, at this late stage, my request to the Under-Secretary of State is that he will give an order now, to stop this report centre being moved on Monday, and if possible will agree with me as to the need for a more impartial inquiry which will look into all these matters.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Peake): I am deputising to-day for the representatives of the Ministry of Home Security who, through unavoidable reasons, are unable to be here. If I show, perhaps, rather less familiarity than they possess with the technicalities of Civil Defence, I hope that the House will forgive me on account of my inexperience. The hon. and gallant Member has rushed into some territory upon which hon. Members are usually a little careful about treading, that is a dispute between two local authorities both operating in the area of his constituency. The Urban District Council of Downham Market takes great exception to certain action taken by the Norfolk County Council.

Mr. Messer: The County Council are the Civil Defence authority?

Mr. Peake: Yes. As I understand it, they are the scheme-making authority for

all Civil Defence purposes, apart, of course, from the Fire Service, which is a national service. My hon. and gallant Friend's quarrel, therefore—if he has a quarrel—is with the Norfolk County Council and not, in my view, with the Ministry of Home Security or with the Regional Commissioner. The functions of the Regional Commissioner in this matter are very limited. They are limited to approving or disapproving of the action of the scheme-making authority. My hon. and gallant Friend's complaint, as I understand it, is not that the Regional Commissioner has rushed in and done something which he should not have done, but that he has refused to disapprove of the action taken by the competent and duly elected local authority. As hon. Members are aware, the usual complaint about Regional Commissioners is of a different character and is that they are representatives of a brutal and highly centralised bureaucracy, which is continually over-ruling and over-riding the decisions of the properly-constituted and duly-elected local bodies.

Mr. McEntee: Would not the Minister agree that it is generally upon the advice of the Regional Commissioner that the duly elected local authority acts?

Mr. Peake: I am not sufficiently experienced in these matters to know who takes the initiative, but the law places the responsibility fairly and squarely upon the backs of the local authority, and it is only where the Regional Commissioner disapproves of the action taken that the Government grant is withheld. My hon. and gallant Friend's complaint here is that the Regional Commissioner has failed to act as the representative of centralised bureaucracy and has failed to interfere with the arrangements, in my view the proper arrangements, which were made by the Norfolk County Council. I think that my hon. and gallant Friend is perfectly aware that this is the position, because he began this issue by a letter to the Regional Commissioner on 19th October in which he said:
I understand that you have approved the proposal of the Norfolk County Council A.R.P. Committee to move the Report and Control Centre to the Casual Wards of the Public Assistance Institution.
Perhaps I may say, in passing, that the Public Assistance Institution is, of course,


the property of the Norfolk County Council, and I may also say that when the Mobile First Aid Unit occupied the rooms in the casual wards there, from which they will be displaced, they were doing so as interlopers. They had not received any permission to occupy that part of the institution at all. My hon. and gallant Friend clearly understood that this was the decision of the Norfolk County Council to which exception was taken by Down-ham Market.

Captain De Chair: My right hon. Friend says that they were interlopers. I dealt with that point in my speech, when pointed out that Dr. Gibb had obtained the approval of the Chairman of the Guardians Committee at the time the action took place, and I do not think it is fair to say they were interlopers. It may have saved a tremendous amount of paper work.

Mr. Peake: The point may have been verbally mentioned but, as I understand it, there has been no proper authority given for the occupation of those premises. My hon. and gallant Friend followed up his letter of 19th October, when he had a reply from the Regional Commissioner, by a further letter of 8th November. The very first sentence of that letter is:
There seems to have been a complete lack of understanding between the Norfolk County Council A.R.P. Committee and the Downham Market people over the question of removing the report centre.
My hon. and gallant Friend was clearly aware, at this stage of the proceedings, that his quarrel was with the Norfolk County Council and not with the Regional Commissioner, whose part in this matter was purely a passive one, that is to say of refusing to interfere and override the decision of the proper local authority. In those circumstances I think perhaps, that my hon. and gallant Friend, when he looks at the terms of the Question which he put to the Minister of Home Security on 8th December, will on reflection consider that this hardly did justice to the position of the Regional Commissioner in this matter, because one of the questions asked was whether the Minister of Home Security was aware
that the Eastern Regional Commissioner has issued an order to move the A.R.P. report centre of Downham Market from the place where it has functioned for four years to a building which the voluntary workers, upon whom the smooth working of the A.R.P.

arrangements depend."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th December, 1943; col. 1255, Vol. 395.]
I am sure that anybody reading that Question would think that the Regional Commissioner had issued an order and had taken the initiative in this matter, whereas, in point of fact, the direct opposite was the case. This action was taken by the proper authority. The Regional Commissioner was appealed to for his approval. He himself went and viewed the different premises, and, having given his consideration to the matter, declined, and I think quite properly declined, on the merits of the case, to interfere with the action of the Norfolk County Council. I do not really know whether, in these circumstances, it is necessary to go very much into the suitability of the different premises involved. In the view of the Minister of Home Security and of the Regional Commissioner, the action of the local authority was perfectly correct and fully justified. My hon. and gallant Friend said that he very much doubted whether these premises were inspected and that we imagined that they consisted only of two basement rooms. We have a report, a copy of which was sent to my hon. Friend, from the Senior Regional Technical Adviser of the Region, dated 12th November. This is the report:
I inspected Downham Market Report and Control Centre to-day. This consists of two small compartments, one cannot call them rooms, in a basement, and one room above on ground floor level. The basement is approached down a stairway with insufficient headroom. The first compartment is about 8 ft. 6 in. and about 5 ft. 8 in. high only, and I could not stand upright in it. Inward telephones are in this compartment. Between this and the next compartment there is an opening, heavily timbered, of a height of 5 ft. from the floor, there are two steps up to the next compartment. This is about 6 ft. by 10 ft. and about the same height as the first. There is no adequate ventilation.
Then there is a description of the Control Room on the ground floor which is stated to be about 12 feet square, with one window. The report concludes:
The basement compartments are not fit for human habitation and the upstairs room is also very poor accommodation. I have no hesitation in saying that it should never have been used as a Control Centre and it should cease to be so used as soon as possible, as nothing can be done to improve it.

Captain De Chair: This report cannot be regarded as very thorough, because it leaves out of account the two rooms which are on the first floor and which I have mentioned.

Mr. Peake: There is evidently some dispute about this. I know the hon. and gallant Member has visited these premises, that he spent a short time, only a short time, there one morning on his way to catch a train at Downham Market station. But we have had the reports, not only of the appropriate authority, the Norfolk County Council, but of the inspectors of the Regional Commissioner, and our information is based upon reports of officials who are familiar with these premises and the local situation and have been so familiar for some time. I must confess that the impression I got from the reports is that it is a source of wonder this position has been allowed to be maintained for such a long time. I am surprised that some change has not been made earlier.
As regards the premises which have been suggested as alternatives we are advised that this Mobile First Aid Unit will not be seriously inconvenienced by giving up two rooms to us for the Report

Centre at the Public Assistance Institution. This seems to be the most economical proposal. My hon. and gallant Friend said they wanted more palatial accommodation. This is a Public Assistance Institution. I am quite sure that the accommodation is not of a palatial character. It is already owned by the County Council, so it will not cost anything except for adaptation, and so far as adaptation is concerned we have an estimate, I think, of £100 to be spent for the necessary alterations. Alternative premises have been considered in regard to which the cost would be very much greater, and if they were requisitioned a rent would have to be paid for them. It does not seem to me to be an appropriate case in which the Regional Commissioner should be asked to interfere, and in my view this is a matter which might well have been settled locally and need never have troubled the Mother of Parliaments.

Question, "That this House do now adjourn," put, and agreed to.